


Aestas

by Slenderlock



Category: Night at the Museum (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Fluff, High School AU, Implied Sexual Content, Larry is The Snapper, M/M, No Explicit Sexual Content, No one likes Kahmunrah
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-29
Updated: 2015-05-29
Packaged: 2018-04-01 16:02:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 30,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4026139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Slenderlock/pseuds/Slenderlock
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>((A compilation of all the entries on the <a href="http://www.ask-hs-jedtavius.tumblr.com/tagged/ask/chrono">HSAU Jedtavius ask blog</a>. Reads as a consecutive story from beginning to end.)) </p><p>Junior year is when he discovers that this school has privately funded sports teams.</p><p>He comes to the field after school every practice he can, just to watch. Because damn. Especially that one kid. He's number, what, seventeen or something? Octavius doesn't remember. All he knows is that whoever he is, he's got a fantastic-</p><p>Set of eyes that are <i>staring straight at him. </i></p><p>Octavius fumbles around for his textbook and wrenches it up in front of his face.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Aestas

_It’s been a year, now._

_“I knew you’d be here.”_

o0O0o

He transfers over at the end of Sophomore year.

It's a difficult adjustment, but nothing he can't handle. There aren't too many people he has to say goodbye to, and there isn't anyone he'll miss too terribly.

The end of sophomore year feels odd; after all, he's only spent a semester here, so it feels like the year's only half over. But summer comes, and he finishes his sophomore year with a solid list of straight A's.

Junior year is when he discovers that this school has privately funded sports teams.

Octavius's never really been one for sports, except maybe soccer. Because he understands the rules for soccer. Football, though? He could be watching two geniuses competitively building computers and follow the story better.

But with tight pants like that, who cares?

He comes to the field after school every practice he can, just to watch. Because _damn._ Especially that one kid. He's number, what, seventeen or something? Octavius doesn't remember. All he knows is that whoever he is, he's got a fantastic-

Set of eyes that are _staring straight at him._

Octavius fumbles around for his textbook and wrenches it up in front of his face.

o0O0o

“Smith?”

Jedediah jogs to a stop on the track at his coach’s voice. Mr. Daley isn’t frowning (or god forbid, snapping) so he’s probably not in trouble.

“What is it, sir?” he asks.

“That kid in the stands,” Daley says, nodding over to the other side of the field. “Do you know him?”

Oh, right. The _kid._

“Nope.” Jedediah shrugs. “I don’t even know his name.”

“Huh.” Mr. Daley crosses his arms. “He seems to be here an awful lot.”

“Yeah, he likes watching practice.”

“Strange.”

“Strange?”

Mr. Daley shrugs. “Football practice doesn’t seem like the most interesting thing in the world to watch.”

“Not if you’re watching it for the football,” Jedediah agrees.

Mr. Daley blinks. And then-

“Oh.”

Jedediah snorts. “He’s not too subtle, that one.”

“Well, at least he isn’t causing any trouble.” Mr. Daley shrugs. “I suppose I’ll just let him be, then. Get back to your laps, now, Smith.”

Jedediah shoots one more look at the stands- the kid’s looking straight at him, but as Jedediah turns towards him, he buries his face into his book- before nodding and setting off again around the track.

o0O0o

For fuck’s sake, it’s snowing.

Sure, the kid’s got a scarf on, but there’s not much else protecting him from the cold. As practice goes on, Jedediah can’t help but sneak glances of the kid, worrying. The idiot’ll probably catch a cold if he’s not careful.

 _“All right, break! I want you back in position in ten minutes,”_ the coach calls, and the team disperses. Sweaty and nearly steaming from the exercise, Jedediah jogs over to his bag, which is lying alongside the others’ stuff. He digs out his jacket, black and covered with a layer of cat hair.

The poor kid’s so engrossed in his little book that he doesn’t even notice Jedediah walking up towards him.

“Hey,” Jedediah says, and the kid jumps, book snapping shut. Jedediah holds out the jacket. [“You, uh. You looked cold.”](http://fuzzytrashgiver.tumblr.com/post/114817963475)

The kid’s scarf isn’t exactly soaking, per se, but it’s absorbed a fair amount of snow. Underneath it, the kid shivers. He takes the jacket, cautiously, and wraps it around himself.

“Thanks,” he says, in the tiniest voice Jedediah’s ever heard.

“No problem.” Jedediah smiles. “I get hot enough running around the field; I don’t need it.”

The kid nods, picking up his book again and sifting through the pages. Jedediah panics.

“Hey, I, uh,” he says, grabbing the book. “You’re in my other class, first period, and- you’re really smart, you know that? I mean, I just wanted to tell you. You’re like a little geek, ha. I mean, not in a _bad_ way, that’s not what I meant, I just meant that you’re really smart and- and I don’t know your name, or anythin’, but I see you here all the time and I just wanted to-”

“Octavius.”

“Wha?”

The kid smiles, holding out his hand. “My name’s Octavius.”

Jedediah takes the hand, shaking it. “Jedediah.”

o0O0o

First period English has got to be one of the most soporific inventions known to mankind. Jedediah, head buried in his crossed arms, is about to fall asleep completely when something jabs him in the back.

He sits up sharply, jolting his desk forward a few inches. The _honk_ it makes as it skids across the floor brings him fully back to consciousness and he coughs, sitting back in his seat.

Beside him is Octavius, looking highly amused.

“Shaddup,” he mutters, arms crossed sulkily.

“Just thought I’d wake you up before we got to work,” Octavius says, scooting his chair over to Jedediah’s desk _why is he doing that what-_

“Work?” he repeats, frowning.

“We’re paired up,” Octavius explains, and Jedediah glances around the classroom. The rest of the class is chattering away amongst themselves, working in pairs.

“Oh,” he says, dumbly. “So, what’s this? We have to fill in a packet, or something?”

“Group project, due next month,” Octavius corrects him, brightly. “I signed us up for _The Great Gatsby.”_

Jedediah groans, sliding back in his chair until his neck brushes the back edge.

o0O0o

“But _Jedediah’s_ got a cat.”

“Your father’s allergic, Octavius.”

“Well, yeah, but dad’s never home.”

“I said no.”

Octavius pouts. “Fine, then. No cat.” He brightens. “But what about something smaller? Like, uh, a hamster?”

“A _rodent?”_ In the kitchen, Octavius’s mother drops the plate she’s washing into the sink. It topples the stack of glasses and who whole lot comes down with a crash.

“It wouldn’t have to be a hamster!” Octavius hurriedly starts setting the dishes upright again. “It could be something else, like a squirrel-”

“Absolutely not.”

“Jedediah’s got a cat, though; why can’t we have a pet?”

“And who is this Jedediah person you keep talking about?” his mother demands, shutting the water off. “You haven’t talked about your new school at all, you know.”

“Haven’t I?” Octavius finishes restacking the glasses and wipes his hands on his jeans.

“No, you haven’t.” His mother smiles, and Octavius knows he’s absolutely screwed.

“Well,” he says, carefully, because his mother’s twice as smart as anyone he’s ever known, “Jedediah’s a friend.” Before she can butt in with _you made a friend?_ he runs her over. “He’s just my- he’s in my English class. We’re doing a project together.”

“I see.” Oh, yes, she sees. She sees too much. “And will he be coming over here to work?”

 _“Mom,”_ he says, opening the dishwasher, but it’s no use. She can see straight through him- and she doesn’t even have to. His red ears tell more of a story than his mouth.

“Well, I can’t wait to meet him.” She ruffles his hair as he sets the glasses next to each other in the dishwasher and makes her way out of the kitchen.

“A _friend,_ mom,” he calls, but she’s already out the door. From somewhere in the outside hallway, he can still hear her voice.

_“Mmhmm.”_

o0O0o

“No, no, no, Henry, that’s not for eating.”

Henry, too engrossed with the splot of mashed potato on the ground, doesn’t even look up. Jedediah groans, leaning over and picking Henry up.

“You already weigh as much as me, you fat loaf,” he scolds. Henry, in his hands, begins to pur. “Yeah, yeah. You like me because I smell like food.”

Henry nuzzles his hand.

“Ugh, you’re impossible.” He sets Henry down on the floor and goes to get a paper towel to clean the mess up. By the time he returns, Henry’s eaten the lot of it.

“Bad girl,” he scolds, sitting back down in front of his dinner plate. Henry runs up to his leg and rubs her face against it, purring loudly. “No,” he says, but he doesn’t shake her off. “You’re not getting any more food today, do you hear me?”

Henry circles his foot and sits directly on top of it, satisfied.

“Fat loaf,” Jedediah say again, before stabbing his fork into his own mashed potatoes.

o0O0o

“So,” Jedediah says, poking Octavius in the side and jostling his arm about. Octavius’s pen slides across the page, sending a large black stripe through his otherwise impeccable writing. He looks up at Jedediah, frowning.

“Careful,” he chides, clicking the pen off and picking the page up to assess the damage.

“Yeah, yeah.” Jedediah shrugs. “That ain’t due until Monday, relax. You can do it over again, right?”

“It’s _your_ essay,” Octavius says, setting the paper back down. “I shouldn’t even be doing it in the first place.”

“But you are,” Jedediah reminds him. “And it’s not due ‘till Monday, so don’ worry about it.”

Octavius bends over the table again for a moment, clicks his pen back on and scribbles on the next line.  He holds the papers out.

“Hey, you’re done already?” Jedediah beams, taking the pages. “Right, let’s see. _The rise of the industrial revolution was mainly driven by the great inventor Octavius, who helped out those in need such as one Jedediah Smith who was so lazy he couldn’t do his own homework-”_

Octavius snorts.

“Octy,” Jedediah says, papers falling to his side, “I can’t work with this. Come on, I gotta get this done.” Octavius snatches the paper back and starts writing again, rolling his eyes.

“Anyway,” Jedediah continues, leaning back in his chair and heaving his feet up on the table. “You come to the practices to watch everyone’s butts, right?”

Octavius sighs, still writing. “Yes.”

“Octy, that’s pretty gay.” Jedediah pats Octavius on the back. The pen streaks down again, this time crossing to the bottom of the page and onto the table. “Whoop, sorry ‘bout that.”

Octavius sucks in a breath. “You’re cleaning that up,” he says, picking up the stack of papers and shaking them on the table until they’re in line with one another. “Because I’m not the one explaining to Ms. Orsay why there’s ink on the back library table.”

“All right, all right.” Jedediah licks his thumb and rubs it over the table, smearing the ink even further. “So,” he continues, rubbing harder, “any butt in particular catch your fancy?”

“Oh,” Octavius says, pen pausing over the page for a moment before continuing. “I mean, um.”

“Besides mine, obviously,” Jedediah continues, smirking. He licks his sleeve and scrubs the pen mark further.

“Oh, besides yours?” Octavius says, setting the pen down and looking at him, exasperatedly. “Well, clearly no one else could possibly compare.”

“Hmm, I suppose you’re right.” Jedediah laughs, snatches the pen off the table and clicks it back and forth, back and forth. Octavius only smiles- strange, Jedediah had expected a struggle.

“Oh, Jedediah,” he says, handing him the pages. “You’re always right.”

“Hey, you’re done already?” Jedediah beams, taking the pages. “All right, let’s see. _The rise of the industrial revolution was mainly driven by the great inventor Octavius, who helped out those in need such as one Jedediah Smith who was so lazy he couldn’t do his own homework-”_

Octavius snorts.

“Octy,” Jedediah says, papers falling to his side, “I can’t work with this. Come on, I gotta get this done.”

“Well,” Octavius says, standing and slinging his bag over his shoulder, “you’ve got until Monday.”

“Hey,” he says, when the bell rings to signal the end of first period and Octavius makes as if to leave. Octavius turns instead, and though he tries not to make it obvious, Jedediah can see him glance worriedly at the clock.

“What?”

“You ain’t gonna be late, relax.” Jedediah rolls his eyes. “Hey, uh. I was wonderin’ if you could come over.”

Octavius blinks. “Over?”

“Yeah, to my house.” Jedediah rubs a hand on the back of his neck. “To work on stuff, you know.”

“Our _Great Gatsby_ project isn’t due for another three weeks- three and a half, actually,” Octavius points out.

“I know, I know, but- you’ve got Erstad for Chemistry, too, right?” Jedediah stuffs his own notebook into his bag and stands- they’ve lost a minute of passing period already. “An’ I just know she’s gonna give a test tomorrow- an’ I don’t know a thing about that stuff.”

Octavius sighs, and they start towards the hallway. “Fine,” he says, “but you owe me.”

o0O0o

They call him The Snapper.

“Why?” Octavius asks, one day at lunch.

Beside him, Jedediah shrugs and pokes his cafeteria pizza with a fork. “Because he snaps.  _All the time.”_ Octavius cringes. It must be terrible to have a coach that constantly gets angry.

“That’s awful,” he says. Jedediah nods solemnly.

“When I got on the team,” he says menacingly, “they called him The Flashlight.”

“Really?” Wide eyed, Octavius ignores his own lunch. “Why?”

Jedediah shrugs. “Because he sheds light on our mistakes? I got no fuckin’ clue.” He snorts. “All I know is you don’t want to catch him on a bad day.”

Octavius nods, and they move the topic of conversation onwards and away from the mysterious Coach Daley.

o0O0o

Octavius has never seen anyone snap more in his life.

By the end of that day’s practice- when he actually allows himself to look at anything other than  ~~Jedediah’s~~ the array of tight pants that this world has so graciously offered him and instead focuses on the coach- he’s nearly been able to decode Daley’s snap language.

A series of smaller, rapid fire snaps usually means “I’m thinking of something.”

One loud snap means “I’ve got it!”

Two loud snaps mean “I’m upset/you’re doing something wrong.”

Three loud snaps mean “pay attention.”

He still hasn’t figured out what four snaps mean, but he’s sure he’ll know sooner or later.

Jedediah meets him at the end of practice, sweaty as ever and looking as though he’s about to burst from sheer mirth.

“You- you should have seen your face when he came in,” he wheezes, leaning on Octavius as they leave the field. “You were so scared, oh my god.”

“Oh, shut up,” Octavius snaps. “You were the one going on and on about how much he  _snapped_ at everyone.”

“Yeah, well.” Jedediah shrugs. “He does.”

Behind them, the faint sound of snapping can be heard from the field. Jedediah turns sharply- but relaxes at the sight of Coach Daley swinging his hips to whatever beat’s pumping in through his headphones.

“False alarm?” Octavius teases.

“Ah, shaddup.”

o0O0o

_“I can’t.”_

“What?” Jedediah falls down on his bed, pressing the phone to his ear.

_“I told you, I’m busy.”_

“What, too busy for homework?” Jedediah rolls his eyes. “Come on, Octy. You gotta help me; I’m gonna bomb this thing.”

_“Then maybe you should have paid more attention in class.”_

What the hell’s gotten into him? Jedediah lets out a groan that sounds a bit like _rrrrrrrrgggghn_ and contemplates just hanging up.

“What are you doing that’s so important, anyway?” he demands, sitting back up and toying with his sleeve.

“Oh, uh.” From across the line, Octavius coughs. It sends a burst of noise through the speaker. “I’ve got a date.”

o0O0o

“So,” Octavius says, as Ms. Orsay finishes taking roll and they’re left to work for the rest of class, “what’d you get done last night?”

“Hm?” Jedediah doesn’t look up from his backpack, where he’s pretending to sift through his stuff.

“The project,” Octavius clarifies. “I couldn’t help, but at least you got some of it done, right?”

“Oh,” Jedediah says, still bent over. “Yeah, no, I just sort of ignored it.”

“You… you mean you didn’t do _anything?”_ Octavius asks, and wow, Jedediah’s never heard him actually sound pissed off before. This is new. “Jedediah, that project’s due in three weeks; we don’t have time for you to slack off-”

“Hey, I wasn’t the one who canceled,” Jedediah snaps, looking up from his bag.

“That was different- something came up-”

“A _date.”_

“It was important!” Octavius huffs and crosses his arms. “Whatever. At least we can work on it, now.”

Jedediah zips his bag up and kicks it under his desk. “Nope, sorry. I musta forgot it at home.” He doesn’t even try to keep the smug grin from his face, as he leans back in his chair and straight up flops his feet up onto the table.

“I cannot _believe-”_ Octavius can’t even look at him- Jedediah just shrugs, closing his eyes. He yawns, just to rile him up even more.

“So we’ll work on it tomorrow,” he says, shrugging. “So what?”

“What is _wrong_ with you?” Octavius looks as though he’s close to boiling.

“Me? I’m fine.” Jedediah tugs his beanie down over his eyes. “It’s first period, man, lemme get some sleep.”

He half expects Octavius to say something back, but he doesn’t. Instead, he just reaches for his bag and pulls out his English notebook and a pen. Ignoring Jedediah completely, he scoots his desk two feet away and begins scribbling.

Jedediah just slumps back down further in his chair and waits for the bell to ring.

o0O0o

Octavius is a stuffy, annoying, know it all jerk.

Jedediah’s never wanted to kiss anyone more. 

He remembers dating that Amelia girl last year, back before she’d dumped him for that transfer girl from France. And no, he’s not bitter about it. Maybe a little.

But not really. Because their relationship hadn’t ever clicked. Sure, she’d been energetic and sweet, and he’d enjoyed actually going out on dates with her, but he’d never…

He hadn’t found her attractive.

And then Mister Perfect Brains just _waltzes_ in, and god damn it he’s dating _Lancelot._

When his final class- Gym- rolls around, Jedediah doesn’t change into his gym clothes. He tells Mr. Tate he’s forgotten to bring them in and ends up sitting by the edge of the wall, told to do homework until the end of class.

He watches as the girls face off against the boys in round after round of basketball and forces himself to stare at their shorts. Breasts. _Anything._

Gwen sure does have… breasts. She has them. As she runs, they bounce with her. Jedediah stares at them, squints a little.

It’s confirmed. Gwen has breasts.

“Girls against girls, now; boys against boys,” Mr. Tate calls, after ten or so minutes, and the class splits into two, each side taking up half of the gymnasium. “Girls, come get jerseys and split into _equal_ teams. Boys, go shirts and skins.”

Jed watches as the girls slip on their jerseys and the boys peel off their shirts and the game begins- and there’s really not much to watch on the girls’ side because they’ve got their jerseys on but _damn,_ Alex has to have some sort of daily work out plan or something because _wow-_

He comes out of the locker room with his stuff, wondering what to do with this newfound information, when someone slams into his side. He’s knocked off his feet, along with whatever it was the person was carrying. One of the books lands on his foot.

“Ow- hey, watch where you’re-” He stares. “Gwen?”

“Don’t think I didn’t see you today, Jed,” she says, picking up her books coolly. “I have a boyfriend, you know.”

“What?” Jed frowns, before remembering that he’d devoted quite a lot of time and effort into staring at Gwen’s chest. “Oh. Uh.”

“I’m flattered, but.” Gwen picks up her binder and stands.

“Oh, no,” Jedediah says, shaking his head and standing, too. “No, I’m not- that wasn’t-”

“Hey, no worries.” Gwen winks. “It’s nice to know I can catch a boy’s attention at a moment’s notice.”

“No, that’s not it,” Jedediah says, reddening by the second. “It’s just. I, uh.”

Gwen looks at him curiously. Jedediah sighs.

“I’m gay.”

o0O0o

He’s angry.

Octavius is out on another stupid date with stupid Lance and they’re probably doing stupid things together and Jed can’t take his mind off of them.

He looks over the empty Word document that’s supposed to crank out an essay tonight and sighs to himself.

 _You,_ he writes, _are a dick._

He stops, considers this.

_But you’re a dick with a cute butt, so I guess that makes up for it._

He highlights the whole thing and deletes it.

Presses _ctrl-Z._

 _I hate you,_ he types. Deletes.

 _I hate Lancelot,_ he corrects. Better, but still not quite there. Lance isn’t the worst person in the world; he just happens to be dating Octavius. And damn, that makes him unbelievably mad.

_Why don’t you?_

Why doesn’t Octy hate Lancelot? And even more-

_Why do you like him?_

Dating Lance. It was ridiculous. He’d probably be the worst date.

 _I’d literally rather get run over by a bus,_ he types angrily, _than date Lancelot._

Much better.

 _He was in my first grade class,_ he continues, beginning to feel a bit calmer. _Did you know he used to pick his nose all the time, just, in the middle of class?_

_ AND THEN HE’D EAT IT. _

He underlines the last part three times for more emphasis, then looks over his work. It’s perfect, he thinks. Now, all he has to do is print it out, fit it in an envelope, tear it in half, and throw it away.

He closes the Word document, and clicks “Don’t Save.”

o0O0o

“You’re taking AP Latin?” Octavius gapes at Teddy, who shrugs. “Why? Why would you do that?”

“Either I take one more year of Latin to finish my language credit requirement,” Teddy says, collecting his food tray and walking towards the checkout counter, “or I take a year of French 1.”

Octavius cringes. “Couldn’t you just take, I don’t know, Spanish 1?”

“It’s full. I tried to transfer in but they’d have to pay for an extra student in the class,” Teddy explains sadly. “They’ve already got thirty kids in there.”

Octavius whistles. “That’s a lot.”

They sit down at the table closest to the windows. Octavius opens his bagged lunch and pulls out a sandwich.

“You sure you can’t just take French 1? It’d only be for a semester- and AP Latin’s a full year course,” he points out.

“I’d rather pay the 70 bucks for the AP test and study Latin for a year,” Teddy says slowly, “than spend _half a semester_ in French.”

“He can’t be that bad,” Octavius tries to reason.

“He’s the worst teacher in the school, Octavius, you know that.” Teddy tries to cut his school-issued pizza into sections with the plastic knife and fork. “Besides. It might be fun.”

“AP Latin,” Octavius says, looking him straight in the eye. “Fun.”

“Mr. Ahkmenrah’s a great teacher,” Teddy reasons. “Maybe even better than Mr. Daley.”

“They teach different subjects.” Octavius pouts. “Teaching a language is _much_ different than teaching history.”

“True.” Teddy spears the end triangle of his pizza slice. “Still, I’m enjoying it.”

“For now,” Octavius says threateningly. “Just wait until the test rolls around.”

“I told you- I’d rather take the full Latin course and test- heck, I’d rather take the test _twice-_ than spend a week in French.”

“He can’t be that bad.” Octavius opens his Tupperware container of baby carrots. “After all, he’s still employed here.”

“His classes are all freshmen- the ones who haven’t already been warned off, anyway.” Teddy chuckles good naturedly. “And by the end of the first two weeks, a quarter of them transfer out.”

“Wow.”

“He calls them _French_ men.”

“I’m beginning to see why it’s an unpopular class.”

Teddy shrugs. “They only keep him employed because his brother’s the best teacher- excuse me, _one of the best teachers-_ in the school.”

“Amen to that.”

The bench quivers under the weight of another person and Octavius watches in horror as Jedediah sits down. Jedediah, who’s still mad at him for some reason.

For Chrissake, their project’s due in, what, two weeks, now? And they haven’t worked on it at all.

Jedediah sets his tray down next to Teddy’s, facing Octavius, who doesn’t meet his eye.

“Heya, Teddy,” he greets.

“Hello, Jedediah,” Teddy says, stiffly but not unkindly.

“I was just leaving,” Octavius says, taking his lunch bag and standing from the table. No need to invite the possibility of an argument if it can be avoided.

He eats his lunch in the back of Mr. Kahmunrah’s classroom, because he knows no one ever, ever goes there unless they have to.

o0O0o

This is the worst day _ever_.

He misses the bus on the way to school and has to walk- which of course means he’s twenty minutes late for first period.

Ms. Orsay’s in a bad mood, and of _course_ he’s the one she picks on the whole time.

He gets to his art class and learns that he’s left his sketchbook at home. That knocks off half of his grade for the day.

He goes to the library for lunch and gets kicked out for trying to sleep.

And Octy still won’t talk to him.

He retreats to the soundproof practice rooms and, completely out of his control, bursts into tears.

What the hell? What the _hell?_ Why is he crying, and- more importantly- _why can’t he stop?_

It’s just a bad day, he tells himself. It’s just a bad day. There will be better days later; this just happens to be a bad one. A really bad one.

He chokes a bit on his own breath and a chunk of snot lodges itself up in the forefront of his right nostril.

Okay. A really, _really_ bad one.

He can hear some kid playing the same song over and over in the next room, sloppily and clunkily, and by the third time around he thinks he knows how the piece is supposed to go. Somehow not aggravated by the sound, he curls up underneath the piano bench and just stays, still unable to keep himself from crying.

And damn, it takes the whole of lunch period to stop.

“You okay?” Teddy asks, when he finally _finally_ makes it to the end of the day.

Jedediah shrugs. “I’m fine,” he says. He can still feel the dry edges of his eyes stretch with every blink. “I’ll be fine,” he amends.

Teddy pats him on the back. “Well, if you ever need someone to talk to.”

“Yeah.” Jedediah sniffs. “It’s just been a bad day.”

He’s a mastermind.

“So what do you think of Mr. Daley?”

A _mastermind._

“He’s all right, I guess.” Teddy shrugs, smiling at the freshman that’s chosen to sit at their table today.

“Oh, you don’t like him?”

Jedediah, sitting beside Teddy, hides a smile.

“It’s not that I don’t like him,” Teddy says, shrugging again. “He’s a fine teacher- an excellent teacher, actually. But I don’t care for his curriculum.”

“Well, that’s not exactly his fault, is it?” The kid doesn’t even have a lunch; he’s just sitting there.

“I guess not.” Teddy, starting to appear slightly uncomfortable, rummages around in his own lunch bag. “I, ah. What’s your name?”

“Oh, I’m Nicky.” The kid holds out his hand and Teddy takes it awkwardly. “Nice to meet you.”

Teddy manages a smile. “Likewise.”

o0O0o

They’ve got a week and a half to finish this stupid project. Jedediah hasn’t even started to read the book, and he’s certainly not about to.

And he needs Octy’s help.

Octavius picks up on the second try, third ring. But Jedediah isn’t counting.

 _“Jedediah,”_ he greets, stiffly.

“Hey, Octy.” Jedediah coughs. “I, uh.”

_“What do you want?”_

“Why do I gotta want something?” Jedediah snorts. “Maybe I was just callin’ to say hi.”

_“You weren’t.”_

“I wasn’t.”

_“So, what do you want?”_

“Well.” Jedediah rubs his neck. “I was wonderin’ if you… I mean, I’m free this weekend, so. I just thought you might like to.” He stops, considering just hanging up the phone.

 _“To what?”_ Octavius prompts, and Jedediah can’t tell if he’s genuinely curious or taking the piss.

“To go out sometime. Saturday, maybe.”

 _“Go out?”_ Octavius repeats.

“I mean, like, have lunch somewhere. Or you could come over. Or something.”

The project. He’s doing this for the project.

“But, I mean, if you’re busy with Lance or something,” he adds, hurriedly. “That’s fine. I just thought that.”

_“You thought that what?”_

Jedediah lets out a heavy breath into the microphone.

“I miss you.”

Octavius doesn’t say anything.

“Sorry, I- you’re probably busy,” he says, and oh shit Octy hates him he’s ruined it Octy’s never going to talk to him again how can he have fucked it up this badly-

_“Are you free tomorrow night?”_

“What?”

_“We could go out and have dinner somewhere. Maybe bring some work to do. I’m sure you haven’t done a single one of Ms. Orsay’s worksheets.”_

Impossibly, Jedediah laughs.

“Yeah- no, no, I haven’t.”

_“I know a place that does really good Italian food. I’ll give you the address- meet me there at, what, six?”_

“Sure.” Jedediah can’t stop the smile from smashing out every other possible expression from his face as he clutches the cell phone to his face. “You’re- you’re sure Lance won’t mind?”

_“Mind? Why would Lancelot care?”_

Jedediah blinks. For being boyfriends, that’s a pretty formal thing to call him. “No reason,” he says, casually.

 _“I’ll give you the address in a minute,”_ Octavius says, and then-

Did he just hang up?

Jedediah stares at his phone for a good three seconds before it lights up again, this time with a text. It’s the address to whatever restaurant Octy had been talking about.

He shuts his phone off and stuffs it into his pocket.

o0O0o

Lancelot is always easy to find.

Jedediah doesn’t even have to try. He slips into the dressing room in the back of the school theater and finds him practicing lines in front of the mirror.

“To die…” Lancelot whispers, closing his eyes. He waits for a second or two before opening them dramatically and flinging a hand in the air, shouting, _“to sleep!”_

Jedediah leans against the door and waits.

“To sleep, perchance… to _dream.”_ Lancelot runs a hand across his face. “Ay, there’s the rub- for in that sleep… of _death!_ What dreams?”

He twists his neck and looks directly in the mirror.

“May come.”

Jedediah claps, loudly. Lancelot jumps in surprise, twisting his entire body around to face him.

“Fine show, boi,” Jedediah praises.

Lancelot glows with pride. “Why, thank you. I’m auditioning tomorrow and there was a selection of monologues for the men; but I think that one suits me best, no?”

“Sure it does, sure.” Jedediah shrugs. “Hey, Lance, I wanted t’ask you something.”

“Anything, of course.” Lancelot bows deeply.

“Uh, the bow’s not really, um. Necessary.”

“Part of the character,” Lancelot explains. “I must stay in character until my audition- so that the emotions are still raw in my mind- you understand?”

“Sure thing.” Jedediah resists the urge to laugh. “So, anyway. I wanted to ask you about- I mean, with Octavius an’ all.”

Lancelot narrows his eyes. “Octavius,” he repeats, slowly. “What about him?”

“Well, I mean. You two are dating,” Jedediah says, shrugging. “And I thought-”

“Oh!” Lancelot nods. “Yes, of course. Yes, no, of course we are.”

“You… _are_ dating, aren’t you?”

“I just said we were.” Lancelot fidgets with the edge of his sweater. “So we are. I wouldn’t have said we were if we weren’t; I’d only have said we were if we were. Which we are. So we are, yes.”

“Lance,” Jedediah says, voice low and teasing.

“All right, we aren’t!” Lance falls down into a chair by the mirror, breathing heavily. “None of the girls would date me and I needed- and I knew he liked boys, so I thought he’d be the best choice-”

“Needed?” Jedediah frowns. “Needed what?”

 _“Gwen,”_ Lancelot sighs.

“Gwen?” Jedediah wrinkles his nose. Lancelot doesn’t appear to notice.

“But she’s dating Arthur. And I thought that- well. Maybe if I was dating someone else, she’d get jealous and come after me.”

“So you’re not… actually dating Octy.”

Lancelot frowns, evidently a little miffed. “That wasn’t the point of my story.” He crosses his arms. “I _am_ dating him, technically. But we don’t do… date things.”

“Oh,” Jedediah says, shortly. “Right.”

“You were going to ask me something, though,” Lancelot presses, eager to change the subject. “Something about Octavius?”

“No, no, it’s, uh. Nothing.” Jedediah shakes his head. “Good luck with the audition thing tomorrow.”

 _“Ah, yes,”_ Lancelot purrs, standing again and pressing a hand to his chest. “Where was I? Oh, right.” He clears his throat. “ _Whether it is nobler._ In the mind’s eye, to suffer?”

Jedediah slips out the door just in time to spare himself from having to hear Lancelot hiss _the slings and arrows_ and races out through the theater room into the hallway. He almost runs into the wall, but stops just short before flipping around, slamming his back into it, and sliding down until he’s seated on the floor, knees tucked up.

_Lancelot and Octavius aren’t dating. Octavius isn’t dating Lancelot. They aren’t going on dates. They probably weren’t even going to go out to that play in the first place._

Why can’t he stop thinking about this?

He splays his fingers across his face, unable to keep the shit-eating grin off his face because _Octavius isn’t dating anyone._

o0O0o

“You’ve got to be kissing me.”

“No way, this is a hundred percent seri- wait, what?”

“… _kidding._ You’ve got to be _kidding_ me.”

“Right.”

“Sorry, ha. Been a long day.”

“It’s a half day; there’s only three classes.”

“Still. Three long classes.”

“…sure. Anyway. He takes the whole thing and _unwraps_ it, the idiot.”

“Seriously?”

o0O0o

Octavius likes tight pants, does he?

Well, Octavius is going to _get_ tight pants.

The black skinny jeans that he bought _as a joke_ should do the trick- and paired with that one grey shirt that hugs his stomach and that one jacket that comes up in the back, they show off his ass perfectly.

He absolutely does not slap his own ass in front of the mirror before he leaves.

Jedediah sneaks out the back door- because if his mother caught him in this stuff, he’d be grounded on the spot- and looks up the address on his phone. It’s about ten minutes away, if he catches the bus.

When he makes it- on time!- to the restaurant, Octavius is already there waiting for him. He _absolutely does not_ strut as he makes his way over and sets a hand on the table. Startled into attention, Octavius looks up at him.

“Wow,” he says, and Jedediah _glows._ “You look…”

“Fantastic?”

“Like a twink.”

Jedediah huffs, throwing his jacket over the back of the empty chair and sitting down. “I am not a _twink.”_

“You are, a little bit.”

“Well, you’re one to talk. Are you wearing a scarf? Indoors?”

“And I thought I told you to bring homework- what are we supposed to do, now?”

“Have dinner?” Jedediah slides a menu across the table.

Octavius rolls his eyes. “Fine, you big goof.”

o0O0o

They make it through half a basket of rolls before Octavius finally, finally seems to catch on to what Jedediah’s doing.

“Soup?” he says, raising an eyebrow at the bowl being placed in front of Jedediah.

“Soup,” Jedediah agrees, taking a spoon and stirring it a couple times.

“I didn’t peg you as a… soup kinda guy.” Octavius looks up from over his water glass.

“Oh?” Jedediah eyes the plate opposite his own. “Like you’re one to talk, mister spaghetti.”

“Ha, ha.” Octavius swirls a few noodles up with his fork.

“That looks good, actually. Lemme try some of that.”

And before Octavius can protest, he reaches right across the table and twirls his spoon in the middle of Octavius’s plate of spaghetti. And as it’s a spoon, it doesn’t have much luck collecting noodles.

Octavius laughs. “Here,” he says, taking a few strands with his fork and plopping them onto the plate underneath Jedediah’s bowl of soup. “And in return, you have to give me some of your soup.”

“You ain’t got a spoon, Octy.”

“Then I suppose I’ll just have to use yours, won’t I?”

And damn it, how does he manage to look so conniving and so innocent at once?

“Fine, fine. Here ya go.” Jedediah holds the spoon out, but Octavius shakes his head.

“Oh, no, that’s too far for me to reach.” Octavius smiles sweetly. “I’m afraid you’ll have to help me out.”

Dear god. He knows exactly what he’s doing, doesn’t he?

Jedediah scoops up a spoonful of soup and, keeping his eyes locked with Octavius’s, lifts the spoon to his mouth and sips.

“Well, now, that’s not very helpful.” Octavius crosses his arms, leaning forward. “I said I wanted to taste your soup, not watch you eat it in front of me.”

“If you wanted soup, you should have ordered it,” Jedediah points out.

“Well, I gave you some of my pasta; the least you could have done was give me a taste,” Octavius pouts. He twirls his fork in his pasta and- god damn it, Jedediah hadn’t even known spaghetti could be eaten attractively, but apparently it can.

Fine. Octavius wants a taste?

Octavius is going to _get_ a taste.

He swallows down another spoonful of soup and scoots his chair forward, standing a few inches from his seat. Octavius frowns.

“What are you-”

Jedediah almost knocks off a water glass as he reaches across the table, yanks on Octavius’s scarf- _a scarf, why the hell is he wearing a scarf indoors-_ and kisses him full on the mouth.

o0O0o

_“You want me to be your boyfriend?” Octavius raises an eyebrow at Lancelot, who nods vigorously._

_“Yes,” he says, beaming. “Well, I don’t mean actual boyfriend. I mean, technically you’d be my boyfriend, but we just wouldn’t do anything… boyfriend-y.”_

_“Right.” Octavius crosses his arms. There’s twenty minutes left of lunch; he’s beginning to doubt that he’ll get the full story before it’s time to get back to class. Ah, well. He’s got to try, anyway. “Why?”_

_“It’s Gwen.”_

_Of course. It’s always about a girl._

_“Gwen?” he repeats, and the moment he says it, he knows he’s going to regret it._

_“Gwen,” Lancelot sighs. “See, she’s with Arthur right now- and I just know she’d understand that I’m perfect for her, if only she’d look. And- and- and if I dated you, then maybe she’d notice. And then- and then maybe if we broke up, and I appeared to be heartbroken, she’d try to console me- and then she’d see what she was missing the whole time, and-”_

_“I think I see what you’re getting at.” Octavius pats Lancelot on the arm, awkwardly. It’s ridiculous, but he doesn’t see any harm in it. Besides, if Lancelot’s crazy plan ended up working, then…_

_Perhaps it could work for him, too._

_“So you’ll help?”_

_Octavius shrugs. “Sure,” he says, holding a hand out._

_Lancelot ignores it, and shakes his shoulders._

_“Thank you!” he gushes, “thank you, thank you, thank you! Gwen’ll be swooning in my arms by the end of the week.”_

_And with that, Lancelot sprints around the corner and off to- presumably- somewhere important._

_Octavius sighs._

_“I’m sure she will,” he mutters._

o0O0o

_The project’s due in a week and a half and Octavius is almost done. He’s gotten most of it written- all he has to do is revise it maybe twice more and make some sort of design to put it all together, and it’ll be perfect._

_He’s about to start looking up pictures of cars for reference when his phone starts to buzz in his pocket._

_Calling? It’s 2015, who in the world still calls people?_

_Oh. Jedediah, apparently._

_He lets it ring out, but it just starts back up again._

_Maybe Jedediah wants to work on the project. Or maybe he wants to fight. Either way, Octavius just wants it over quickly._

_“Jedediah,” he greets, trying not to sound too… anything._

_“Hey, Octy. I, uh-”_

_“What do you want?” he asks, looking over his notes to see if there’s anything he’s missed._

_“Why do I gotta want something? Maybe I was just callin’ to say hi.”_

_Octavius rolls his eyes. “You weren’t.”_

_“I wasn’t,” Jedediah agrees._

_“So,” he says, and Jedediah doesn’t sound angry, so he’s probably in the clear. “What do you want?”_

_“Well. I was wonderin’ if you… I mean, I’m free this weekend, so.” Octavius wants to laugh at how insecure Jedediah sounds. Yeah, no, he doesn’t want to fight. “I just thought you might like to.”_

_“To what?” he asks, testing just how nervous Jedediah actually is._

_“To go out sometime. Saturday, maybe.”_

_“Go out?” he repeats, amusement rising by the second. Does Jedediah know exactly how he sounds?_

_“I mean, like, have lunch somewhere. Or you could come over. Or something.”_

_This time, Octavius really does laugh. He muffles himself with his bed pillow so as not to let Jedediah hear. Stuttering, probably blushing (adorably) Jedediah- who apparently hasn’t taken notice of the lack of response on Octavius’s end._

_“But, I mean, if you’re busy with Lance or something, that’s fine.” Right. Lancelot. Octavius thinks back to the goofball that’d hooked up with him desperately just a week or so ago. “I just thought that-”_

_“You thought that what?”_

_A burst of static blasts out of the speaker. “I miss you.”_

_Something flutters down in Octavius’s stomach, and he grins uncontrollably. What’s he supposed to say to that? Missed you too?_

_“Sorry, I- you’re probably busy,” Jedediah says, and oh, shit, Octy’s ruined it hasn’t he-_

_“Are you free tomorrow night?” he blurts out, before Jedediah has a chance to hang up._

_There’s a small pause, and for a moment Jedediah thinks that he’s hung up already, but then-_

_“What?”_

_“We could go out and have dinner somewhere,” he offers. “Maybe bring some work to do. I’m sure you haven’t done a single one of Ms. Orsay’s worksheets.”_

_Impossibly, Jedediah laughs._

_“Yeah- no, no, I haven’t.”_

_“I know a place that does really good Italian food. I’ll give you the address. Meet me there at, what, six?”_

_“Sure! You’re- you’re sure Lancelot won’t mind?”_

_“Mind? Why would Lancelot care?” he asks, before he has time to register what he’s saying._

_“No reason.” Well, Jedediah doesn’t seem to notice. Good. He’d hate for Lancelot to be disappointed._

_“I’ll give you the address in a minute,” he says, and smashes the end call button._

_Oh, this is going to be great._

o0O0o

_When Jedediah shows up in pants that are tighter than the ones he wears on the football field (which, by the way, is saying a lot), Octavius knows in an instant what’s going on._

_If Jedediah knows, then that means Lancelot must have told him. And if Lancelot’s told him, then that means they’ll have to break up. And they were going to break up sooner or later, anyway- that’s Lancelot’s plan, after all._

_So Octavius feels absolutely no shame whatsoever as he flirts with Jedediah over dinner._

_At least, he thinks it’s flirting. He doesn’t know if Jedediah sees it that way. Perhaps he just has to try a little harder._

_“Soup?”_

_“Soup.”_

_“I didn’t peg you as a… soup kinda guy.”_

_“Oh? Like you’re one to talk, mister spaghetti.”_

_“Ha, ha.”_

_“That looks good, actually. Lemme try some of that.”_

_Jedediah reaches straight across the table and tries to fork over some of Octavius’s pasta. The only problem is that trying to fork over food with a spoon doesn’t work very well._

_At least now he knows Jedediah’s trying._

_“Here,” he says, transferring over a forkful of spaghetti onto Jedediah’s plate. “And,” he adds, “in return, you have to give me some of your soup.”_

_“You ain’t got a spoon, Octy,” Jedediah says, and Octavius wants to shove his face into his bowl of soup. Either he’s oblivious or he’s teasing- and Jedediah isn’t very good at teasing._

_“Then I suppose I’ll just have to use yours, won’t I?” He bats his lashes a couple times- it’s worked before; maybe Jedediah will like it? Oop- there it is. Octavius watches as Jedediah’s face transforms from a casual smile to something more like a mouse caught in a trap._

_And after a pause that Octavius isn’t sure Jedediah notices-_

_“Fine, fine. Here ya go.”_

_Oh, that won’t do. Surely he can wind Jedediah up a little further._

_“Oh, no, that’s too far for me to reach.” He smiles. “I’m afraid you’ll have to help me out.”_

_Aha, there’s the moment. Now they’re on the same page._

_“Well, now, that’s not very helpful,” he says, as Jedediah just goes ahead and eats his soup. “I said I wanted to taste your soup, not watch you eat it in front of me.”_

_“If you wanted soup, you should have ordered it,” Jedediah snarks back._

_“Well, I gave you some of my pasta; the least you could have done was give me a taste,” Octavius pouts. He twirls his fork in his pasta and lifts it to his lips, letting the noodles slip halfway in. Slowly, he sucks them up, licks the butter off his lips, and locks his eyes with Jedediah’s._

_Jedediah gulps down another mouthful of soup and- stands up?_

_“What are you-” he starts, but he barely manages to squeak out the first three words of the question before he’s tugged forward by his scarf into a kiss._

_Point, set, match._

o0O0o

“You talked to Lancelot,” Octavius says, laughing and shoving a leg up between Jedediah’s. “Didn’t you?”

 “I may have-” Jedediah squeezes his eyes shut as Octavius sucks particularly fiercely at that one spot on his throat- “had a chat.”

“A chat, hmm?” Octavius scrapes his teeth ever so lightly over the hickey he’s undoubtedly left.

Right. That’s it.

Jedediah spins them around so that he’s the one pinning Octy down against the alley wall and-

“Wait, wait!”

He pulls back, looks Octavius over.

“Are you okay?” he asks, immediately retracting his hands. “I didn’t hurt you?”

“No, no, it’s not that, it’s just.” Octavius coughs. “Jedediah, as much as I’d love to make out with you in this alley for, oh, a few hours-”

Jedediah snorts.

“Yeah, yeah,” he says, laughing a little. “I get it.”

“So we should go…” Octavius trails off, looking hopefully up through his lashes at Jedediah.

“Oh!” Jedediah blushes something fierce. “My parents are home, I’m afraid.”

Octavius sighs, sliding an inch or so down the wall. “Mine are, too.”

They both laugh at that.

“As much as you’d love to?” Jedediah repeats, falling against the wall alongside Octavius.

“Isn’t that what I said?” Apparently startled, Octavius whips his head around to stare at Jedediah, who shrugs.

“No, yeah, you said that.”

Octavius smiles weakly. “Oh.”

“Why? What’d you think you said?” Jedediah teases.

“Oh, nothing.” Ignoring his own blush, Octavius runs himself over. “We should get going- besides, I bet you actually are behind in class- how many of Orsay’s worksheets have you done?”

Taking pity on him, Jedediah chuckles. “Not a single one.”

Octavius stands from the wall and offers a hand out. Jedediah takes it and links their arms together. As they walk out of the alleyway, Jedediah nods his head on Octavius’s shoulder.

“What would you do without me?” Octavius hums fondly.

“Dunno.probably get hit by a truck?”

Octavius snorts, then kisses his forehead.

o0O0o

Hardly ever is there a time when Coach Daley is _actually_ snapping at everyone.

But this happens to be one of them.

“Who stuffed a football up his ass?” Jed grumbles as Daley finishes berating them for their awful forms.

“I do not know.” To his right, Attilla (Jed’s not sure where he transferred from, but he likes to bake) shrugs. “Perhaps he is stressed?”

“More like deranged.”

By the end of practice, they’re all worn out and exhausted. Half of the team flops down on the grass for Daley’s end of practice pep talk.

“Now, I’m disappointed in you,” Daley says, folding his arms and looking down at the lot of them. “Or at least one of you, anyway.”

When none of the team responds to this, Daley continues.

“Someone took something from my office, and I know it wasn’t anyone from my classes. It’s very valuable and I expect it back on my desk by Wednesday.”

The team mutters to themselves, a quiet puzzle over exactly what it is Daley’s talking about.

“If I don’t see it by then, I’m going to have to have conversations with you all, personally,” Daley finishes. “And I _will_ find out who it was, mark my words.”

o0O0o

“And then he just left!” Jedediah flops forward onto the cafeteria table, arms crossed. “No explanation, no nothing.”

“Seems harsh,” Teddy says, shrugging. “Do you have any idea what was taken?”

“Not a clue.”

“Well, you don’t have to worry.” Octavius shakes his head. “As long as you didn’t steal it, even if he has to interrogate you personally, you’re innocent. You’ve got nothing to worry about.”

“Oh, I ain’t worried about that.” Jedediah shakes his head. “I’m just mad that he’s takin’ it out on us.”

“Taking what out?”

They turn to see the newest member of their lunch squad- a freshman who’s either named Nicky or Micky, Jedediah isn’t quite sure.

“Coach Daley was uncharacteristically upset yesterday,” Sacagawea explains. Nicky blinks curiously.

“Really?” he says, scooting closer to her. “That’s weird.”

“He said someone took something from him,” Jedediah said, shrugging. “Something valuable. Maybe money? I dunno.”

“Oh.” Nicky reaches under the table into his backpack and brings out-

“You mean this?” he says, holding up a large, battered flashlight.

“The hell’s that?” Jedediah exclaims.

“I found it on his desk the other day; his door was unlocked.” Nicky shrugs, flickering it on and off.

“So you just took it?” Octavius frowns. “What were you thinking? You stole from a teacher!”

“Not to mention you put him in a rotten mood for the rest of the week,” Jedediah adds.

“He’s probably worried about it,” Teddy points out.

“Even though it _is_ just a flashlight,” Sacagawea finishes.

They all look at Nicky, who shrugs.

“What?”

“You should probably give it back,” Jedediah says, reaching for the flashlight, but someone’s quicker- before he can grab the thing, another hand yanks it away.

“Nicky?” Mr. Daley’s voice says, and Jedediah sits up ramrod straight in his cafeteria chair.

“Oh, hey.” Nicky grins, and Jedediah wants to punch his dumb little face- how can he just _act like that_ around a teacher?

“You know this is mine,” Mr. Daley says, slipping the flashlight into a holster at his waist- and, come to think of it, has he always carried a flashlight with him?

“Duh.” Nicky shrugs. “S’why I took it. I needed something heavy for a project.”

“If you wanted it, you should have asked first.” Mr. Daley… _smiles._ “You know, it might just be time to get you a flashlight of your own.”

“Really?” Nicky beams.

“I was around your age when I got my first flashlight, you know.”

“No, you weren’t.”

“No, I was twenty four.”

“Shut up, dad.” Nicky snorts. “Go away, I’m having lunch.”

“Right, right.” Ignoring the stares from the rest of the group, Mr. Daley bends down and kisses Nicky on the forehead. “Have a good day!”

“Dad, you’re embarrassing me,” Nicky grumbles.

“I’m your dad; it’s my job.” Mr. Daley ruffles his hair before walking away, snapping as he goes.

Jedediah stares at Mr. Daley’s retreating figure, frowning. As Mr. Daley snaps, the light on his feet seems to glow brighter- then dimmer. Then brighter- and then dimmer.

“Is that…” He squints. “Is that a _snapper?”_

o0O0o

“It’s your fault for biting your nails,” Octavius scolds. “You’re just lucky you got this on the weekend- plus, now we’ve got time to work on that project. It’s due next Friday, you know.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know.” Jedediah sneezes rather impressively, curling up on his bedspread. Octavius tuts, patting his shoulder.

“Poor thing.”

“And it ain’t my fault- I got food poisoning from that damn soup.”

“You’re sneezing; you don’t have food poisoning.”

“I _had_ food poisonin’.” Jedediah sneezes again. “Ah, crap. Octy, gimme a tissue?”

Octavius passes him the box. Jedediah snorts into one of them and tosses it off the side of his bed.

“That’s extremely unhygienic. You need a trash can in your room.”

“Ugh.”

“See, this must be why you got sick.” Octavius wrinkles his nose at the sight of the discarded tissue. “You got food poisoning, and then your immune system was down. So you must have caught this bug.”

 _“Ugh.”_ Jedediah tosses off the covers, lying octopus-like over his bed. “Come snuggle?”

“Absolutely not.” Octavius shakes his head.

“Oh, come on.” Jedediah sticks out his bottom lip. “Please?”

“You’re not getting me sick, too.”

“We could stay home from school together?”

“Not a chance. I haven’t missed a class yet this year and I’m not about to start.” Octavius shakes up his miniature bottle of hand sanitizer and squirts a dollop onto his palm. “Now, we need to finish this project.”

“But it ain’t due ‘till Friday,” Jedediah protests. “No sense workin’ on it before Wednesday, right?”

Octavius sighs. “Despite what I’m sure you’ve been led to believe for the past eleven and a half years of your schooling, there’s no rule that says you have to complete projects the night before they’re due.”

“No rule that says you don’t.”

Octavius huffs. “Well. Lucky for you, I’ve been working on it for a while. It’s almost done; we just need the beginning part summarizing the plot- I figured you could do that- and some way to tie it all together.”

“We could glue it,” Jedediah says. “With my snot.”

“Very funny.” Octavius frowns. “I assume you still haven’t read the book?”

“I, uh.” Jedediah coughs. “I did, a little bit. I got to the part where he’s talkin’ about his father.”

“That’s the first sentence.”

“Yeah, that part.” Jedediah winces suddenly, rubs his head. “Octy, I’m sorry. I just ain’t up for workin’ right now.” He shivers a little on the mattress.

“All right, all right.” Octavius smiles fondly. “You rest, then. Do you want any food?” He picks the blanket up from the floor and drapes it over Jedediah again.

“Nah, I’m all right.” Jedediah wriggles happily under the blanket. “It was awful sweet of you to come over, you know.”

“Not at all. It was the least I could do after you took me out to such a nice dinner.” Octavius puts a hand in his hair- really, Jedediah needs a haircut- and ruffles it, sending his bangs into his eyes. Jedediah has just enough time to bat his hand away before he sneezes spectacularly.

“Sorry,” he mumbles, sniffling. Octavius hands him a tissue.

“Poor dear,” he coos. Jedediah glares.

“I ain’t nobody’s dear.”

“I’ll be the judge of that.” Octavius gives his hair a pat and pecks his forehead. “Tell you what- no work today, all right? You just stay in bed.”

“Wasn’t plannin’ on workin’ anyway, but all right.” Jedediah smiles. “What about you?”

“I,” Octavius says, pulling out the old paperback copy of _The Great Gatsby,_ “am going to read to you.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake-”

“Just for three chapters, all right? Then you can tell me to stop if you want.”

“All right, all right.” Jedediah rolls his eyes. “Better than working, anyway.”

Octavius scoots his chair closer to the bed and opens the book.

_“In my younger and more vulnerable years, my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since…”_

o0O0o

Octavius gets to the end of the fifth chapter when Jedediah actually falls asleep. He slips a bookmark in and leaves the book on his bedside table, then takes the rest of this things and stands.

He absolutely does not tuck Jedediah in.

“Oh, hello.”

The voice stops Octavius in his tracks as he makes his way to the door. Looking at him is a woman with golden corn hair that matches Jedediah’s perfectly.

“Hi,” he says, nervously. “Are you Jed’s mom?” She nods. “Nice to meet you.”

“It’s nice to meet you, too.”

“Jed’s going to bed; he’s still pretty sick,” he says, nodding down at his bag. “I was just heading home.”

“Are you sure you don’t need a ride?”

“I’ll be fine.”

An awkward silence ensues. Octavius doesn’t want to just leave, now that he’s met Jedediah’s mother. And she doesn’t seem to have anything in particular to say to him. So he stands in the middle of the living room, a few feet from the door.

“Jed never brings friends over,” she says, after perhaps ten or fifteen seconds.

“Oh,” he says. “Um. Well.”

“It was nice to meet you.” She smiles, and that seems to be his cue to leave.

“Nice to meet you, too.”

o0O0o

Gwen’s sweet, but Jedediah should have known better than to tell her something and expect no one else to know it. So by that Monday- thankfully he’s gotten over the food poisoning, though he’s still sneezing off and on- their entire group of friends know about his… _preference._

It’s still nice enough outside that they can sit in the grass for lunch if it’s not too cool- and today happens to be one of those days. Teddy and Sacagawea sit back to back, Nicky’s flopped on his stomach in front of a book Jedediah doesn’t recognize, and Lancelot (who’s taken to sitting with them lately; none of them mind) sits cross legged over his own lunch.

Octavius adopts a similar position, crossed legs. Jedediah wants nothing more than to lie down on his legs, but they haven’t talked about making their relationship public yet. So he doesn’t.

“So, Jed,” Sacagawea says, not looking up from her homework. “Have you met my friend Meriwether?”

Jed, who’s buried in the middle of Octavius’s copy of _The Great Gatsby,_ looks up. “Who?”

“Meriwether,” Sacagawea repeats. “I think you’d like him.”

“Oh,” he says. Coughs. “Thanks?”

“You should ask him out,” she says.

Beside him, Octavius uncrosses his legs and crosses them the other way.

“I should- I- what?” Jedediah stammers, closing the book over his fingers.

“Ask him out.” Sacagawea finally looks at him. “I think you’d be cute together.”

“Oh.” Jedediah blinks. “Uh, I’m not really… looking for anyone, right now.”

Sacagawea shrugs. “Well, if you ever are, ask me. I can introduce you.”

“Right.” He smiles nervously and opens the book again. “Sure thing.”

o0O0o

Jedediah throws his backpack onto the couch as he comes home from school, then flops back down beside it, groaning. He’s still a little sick, and going to school certainly hasn’t helped.

“Honey?”

Oh, perfect. Mum’s home.

“Mmm,” he hums, throwing his legs up onto the couch. He kicks his shoes off and they land on the rug, smudging dirt.

“Honey, can I talk to you for a moment?”

Oh, perfect. She wants something.

“Yeah, sure.” He scoots over to give her space and she sits beside him on the couch. “What is it?”

“That Octavius friend of yours was very sweet,” she says, and a small alarm bell begins to ring in the back of Jedediah’s mind.

“Yeah, he’s nice.”

“He’s been spending a lot of time with you, lately.”

“Mum.”

“I’m only curious.” His mum presses a hand to her chest defensively. “You never tell me about how you’re doing at school.”

“Well, you never ask.” Jedediah shrugs.

“I don’t mean to pry into your personal life-”

“Then don’t.”

“Honey.”

Jedediah folds his arms. “Mum, what do you want? Why are you asking about Octy?”

“Is he your friend?”

“Of course he’s my friend.”

“Is he more?”

Jedediah doesn’t say anything.

He doesn’t talk to his mom, not about school, not about his friends, not about anything. Sometimes she takes him along on errands, sometimes he helps her out with dinner. And when his dad comes home from work, he goes back into his room and ignores them.

And if his mom doesn’t like Octy, then that’s her problem.

“Honey?”

“And what if he is?”

His mom sets a hand on his shoulder. Jedediah fixes his eyes on his lap.

“Then I’d be so happy for you,” she says, quietly. When Jedediah doesn’t say anything to that, she sighs. “You hardly ever bring your friends home- I think I remember seeing that Theodore fellow once or twice, but-”

“You don’t mind?”

“Sweetie, of course not.” His mom laughs, and Jedediah looks up at her. “You know, I think he’s good for you.”

“Pff.” He rolls his eyes..

“He is!”

Jedediah snorts.

“You’ll have to introduce me properly, sometime,” she says, patting his shoulder. “If he’s good enough for you, then I’m curious.”

He smiles.

“Maybe, yeah.”

o0O0o

“You have to.”

“No way- the game’s this Saturday; I can’t just skip.”

_“This is due on Friday.”_

“Then we’ll work on it this Thursday.”

“Today _is_ Thursday!”

Jedediah stops short in the hallway, and thinks through the week. Monday, he’d been sick but he’d come to school- Tuesday, Lancelot had had a very uncomfortable conversation with him about Octavius (which was only awkward because he still didn’t know if Octavius was all right with telling people about their relationship), Wednesday was that practice where he’d sort of twisted his ankle, so that means today is-

“Oh, shit,” he says, “it’s Thursday.”

“Damn right it is.” Octavius sniffs haughtily. “So you’re telling the coach you can’t come to practice and you’re coming to my house after school. Got it?”

“Octy-”

_“Got it?”_

“You’re cute when you’re angry.”

“I’ll hit you, you know I will.”

“Aww, you wouldn’t want to hurt this lil’ face, now would you- _augh!”_

“Oh, quit whining. It was just a little slap.”

“Slap? ‘Slap’ my ass.”

“If you insist.”

o0O0o

“You must be _Jedediah!”_

Jedediah can do nothing but stare at the massively tall woman that’s towering above him. This is ridiculous- he’s in eleventh grade, for god’s sake; he should be as tall _if not taller_ than Octavius’s _mom._ Plus, Octy’s short as anything. Huh, he must have gotten it from his dad.

“Hi, ma’am,” he greets, holding out a hand. She shakes it vigorously.

“No need for formalities, dear, my name’s Camilla.”

“Nice to meet you, Camilla.” He grins up at her. “Octy invited me over to work on our project.”

“Oh, I’m sure he did. He’s right upstairs.”

“Thanks, ma’am.”

“Camilla.”

“Right. Thanks, Camilla.”

o0O0o

He makes himself a grilled cheese and takes it to his room after school, humming happily. Their project’s done, they’ve turned it in, Ms. Orsay was pleasantly surprised, and best of all- no one’s home.

He locks himself in his room and buries himself in his book. Which, of course, means that the hours tick by without his notice. And soon enough, he hears a knock on his door and knows exactly who it is.

“Jed, you in there?”

Jed rolls over, turning another page in his book. “Yeah, dad.”

“I cleaned up your mess in the kitchen.”

“Thanks.” He doesn’t look up from his book, but he can hear his dad opening the door and practically feel the stare being fixed on him.

“Don’t you have a game this weekend? You should be practicing.”

“Dad, I’m fine.”

“Hey, don’t go after me- I just cleaned up all your shit in the kitchen.”

Jed rolls his eyes. “Dad, I said thank you.”

“And then you said _I’m fiiiiinnnnne, stupid adult.”_ His dad squishes his face up and stomps his feet.

“I didn’t say that last part.”

“Well, I can read it. On your little readerboard.” His dad mimics a message flashing across his forehead. “It says _stupid adult.”_

“Dad, I wasn’t thinking that,” Jed says, closing his book and trying for a smile.

“No, I can read your readerboard.”

“Well.” He sets his book to the side. “I can read _your_ readerboard, and it says _stupid teenager.”_

His dad raises an eyebrow and chuckles. “That’s not what it says.”

“No, I can read it,” Jed insists. “I can read your readerboard.”

“Well, you can’t read very well,” his dad says, “because it actually says messy, _slobby_ teenager.”

“Right.” His room’s pretty bad, he has to admit. He shrugs.

“Clean your crap up, Jed.”

And with that, his dad closes his door. Jed picks his book up and goes back to reading, focusing his thoughts on the story of Jay Gatsby and _not_ on the sound of his father’s voice. He means well, though, he really does. He’s just… him. There’s nothing wrong with his dad; he’s never felt unsafe, or anything. It’s all fine.

But yes. Gatsby.

Jed rolls over to his other side and turns the page.

o0O0o

And then it’s Friday.

“You’ve got the project, right?” Octy hisses, as he takes his seat. The bell rings, signaling the beginning of class.

“Right here.” He tugs it out of his back pack and sets it on the table. It’s designed as a menu, complete with expert gold lettering, courtesy of Jed. The appetizer is the summary of the book, the main course is a hearty discussion of the various symbols throughout the story, and the dessert is Octavius’s handiwork- an explanation of what the ending means and why it’s important.

It’s probably the best project Jed’s ever had his name on.

“I suppose we won’t have to go on any more study dates, hmm?” Octavius says, when lunch rolls around. It’s raining today, so they eat around one of the tables in the lunchroom. Jed always skips the last bit of fourth period to get in the front of the lunch line, and Octavius brings his lunch- so they both wait alone at the table for the rest of their group. Teddy buys his lunch while Sac brings hers, but Sac always waits with him in the lunch line.

Octavius brushes Jed’s knee with his own.

“Suppose not,” Jed agrees. “Though, I mean. If you wanted to help me out with chemistry…” he trails off, nudging his knee back against Octy’s.

“Say the word and I’ll be there.”

“Hmm.” Jed leans his head on Octy’s neck, smiling stupidly. He can’t remember being this happy before, really.

“Jed.”

“Hmm?”

“Jed, your hand’s on my ass.”

“What?” He looks down and, yep, that’s definitely his hand. On Octy’s ass. He yanks it back, reddening considerably. “Sorry!”

Octavius snorts and takes Jed’s hand with his own. “You’re dumb.”

 _“You’re_ dumb.”

“You’re dumber.”

“I am not dumb-”

Apparently Octavius has had enough, because he pulls Jed down for a kiss, right in the middle of the lunchroom. Ignoring the fact that yes, they’re _in the lunchroom, in front of everyone,_ Jed kisses him right back, because there is no way in hell he’s just gonna let Octy kiss him without giving him something back.

And hold up, is that _Octy’s_ hand on _his_ ass?

“Wow, Octavus. You move fast.”

They break apart, startled at the sound of Sacagawea’s voice. Standing behind the table is Sac, Teddy, Nicky, and that one friend of Teddy’s that Jed doesn’t know the name of- but he’s got fantastic hair, that’s for sure. He thinks to himself that Lancelot might like this guy.

“Hey, guys,” Octy says, waving a hand weakly. Jedediah makes a mental note to himself that, when he remembers this moment weeks later, he’ll remember the fact that Octy’s hand is still on his ass, thank you very much.

Nicky raises an eyebrow. “Hey.”

Teddy, Sac, Nicky, and perfect-hair sit down silently, all looking at Jed and Octy.

“Oh, for god’s sake-”

“Seriously-”

Both Jed and Octy move to yank the other into a kiss, just to show off in front of the rest of the group. But as both of them are trying, they both miss, foreheads cracking together.

“Ow, fuck,” Jed mutters, rubbing his head. Octy does the same, wincing.

“Wow.” Sacagawea giggles. “You… you two really are perfect together, you know that.”

“Ah, shaddup.” Jed scowls, but Octavius pats him on the head. And his hand’s still on Jed’s ass, so that must mean everything’s all right.

o0O0o

Monday comes, and Octavius has never felt better. (Well, his ass has certainly felt better before, but he doesn’t mind all that much.) He’s about to head down for lunch when something stops him.

“Octavius?”

Octavius turns to see that one kid- he really needs to get better at learning people’s names around this school- jogging towards him.

“Yeah?”

“Before you go to the cafeteria, I, uh.” The kid rubs his neck. “You were, uh. With Lance, right?”

“I was,” he says, nodding. “Why?”

“So you aren’t anymore,” the kid says. “Like, you’re just with that Jed guy now, right?”

He’ll have to discuss this separately with Lance later, but right now he knows the answer.

“Yes,” he says, nodding. “Lance’s all yours.”

The kid blushes. “I didn’t- I didn’t mean-”

“Calm down, I’m not gonna tell anyone.” Octavius laughs. “Now, come on down to lunch.”

o0O0o

Octy’s late. Octy’s never late. Jed taps his foot on the linoleum tiles on the cafeteria floor, hunching over his lunch tray.

He looks up as Octy sits down, but-

“Custer?”

“Hi, Jed!” Beside Custer, Octy gives a sheepish smile.

“Sorry I was late, I was just talking with Custer for a second.”

“Right.” Jed can’t help but constantly notice the fact that Custer is sitting between them. He nudges his tray a few inches away.

The rest of them come and eat, laughing alongside each other. Custer easily becomes part of the group, even if he talks to Sac more than anyone else. Teddy and Sac sit a little closer together than Jed remembers them being, and Nicky just sort of… watches.

Jed doesn’t leave early, because that would look odd, but he hardly contributes to the conversation. And when lunch ends, Octy leaves with Custer, not even looking back at Jed once. Jed dumps his lunch tray in the trash and heads wordlessly to fifth period.

o0O0o

_Hey. You okay?_

Jed looks at his phone in surprise.

 _Yeah, I’m fine,_ he writes. _Why?_

Octavius’s reply comes nearly instantaneously.

_You seemed off today._

Jedediah smiles, despite himself. Before he can start writing a reply, another message comes from Octavius.

_Sorry I didn’t talk to you at lunch, Custer was being kind of annoying._

Jedediah laughs.

 ** _He seemed to like you,_** he writes, and sends it before he can feel bitter.

 _I think Custer is thirstier for the D than you are,_ Octavius sends back. _He wouldn’t shut up about Lancelot._

 ** _Lance?_** Jedediah asks.

_Yeah. I give it a week before one of them asks the other out._

Jedediah’s heart soars.

 ** _Come over this weekend?_** He asks, and the two minutes it takes for Octavius to reply are the longest in his life.

_Sure xoxo_

Jedediah takes a screenshot.

o0O0o

“Mum and dad are out tonight,” Jed tells him, excitedly. “Dad’s got a work thing, but it’s out of town, so he’s taking mum along.”

“I can’t believe you call your mother _mum,”_ Octavius says. Jed whacks him on the arm, closing the door.

“You brought stuff?” he prompts, nodding to the bag hanging from Octavius’s hand.

“Yeah.” Octavius nods, walking to Jed’s kitchen and setting the plastic bag down. “Not a whole lot, just some, uh. Cookie dough.” He pulls out the roll of dough and sets it on the kitchen counter. “I hope you aren’t allergic- I’m sorry I didn’t ask you sooner-”

“Ain’t allergic to nothin’, ‘cept maybe your frown.”

“God, you’re so cheesy.”

“The cheesiest.” Jed presses a smacking kiss on Octy’s neck, snatching up the cookie dough. “You keep on like this an’ I’ll have to give you somethin’ in return.”

Octavius snorts. “I didn’t say cheesy was good.”

“You didn’t have to.”

Octavius rolls his eyes. “Come on, you meatball. Let’s make cookies.”

Jed, who’s already torn open one end of the roll and carved out a good sized chunk of dough into his hand, frowns. “Make ‘em? You mean we’re not just gonna eat the dough?”

“It’s raw egg- Jed, you’d throw up in twenty minutes.” Octavius takes the roll out of his hands. “We’re going to make them, like normal people do.”

 _“Normal_ people eat the dough.”

“Then I guess normal people must throw up every time they make cookies. Now, where are your cookie sheets?”

Octavius unwraps the rest of the roll and pulls out a wooden cutting board. He sets the dough down on the board and begins a search for a knife. Jedediah’s kitchen is so different from his own, and he hasn’t been here all that often. Well, yes, he was here when Jed was sick, but that’s different. He knows the way to Jed’s room but he doesn’t know his way around the kitchen or around the rest of Jed’s house- and it’s not a terribly huge place, so it probably won’t take him too long to get the feel for it- that is, of course, assuming that he’s going to be spending a lot of time here-

_“Jed!”_

He turns back around, butter knife in hand, to find Jed with a handful of dough already in his mouth. Jed chews guiltily, looking down at the decimated roll of dough.

“If you throw up tonight, I’m not holding your hair back.”

“My hair’s not _that_ long.” Jed self consciously runs a hand through his locks, mentally measuring them. “Is it?”

“I could braid it if I wanted,” Octavius says, dryly. “Now wash your hands. We can still salvage what’s left of this stuff.”

Grumbling, Jed slouches over to the sink and reluctantly scrubs off the spit from his hands.

“I ain’t gonna get sick,” he mutters, yanking off the hand towel from its resting place over the handle of the stove. “And my hair ain’t long.”

“Stop your whining and come make cookies.”

“They’re already made, Octy.” Jed wipes his hands on the towel before using it to whack Octavius on the backside. “All we gotta do is eat ‘em.”

“I’m never bringing cookie dough for you again,” Octavius sniffs, feigning offence. “You’re positively- _Jed!”_

Another clump of cookie dough vanishes from the roll. Jed shrugs, mouth once again full.

“We’re not going to have anything if you don’t- oh, shit.”

“What?” Jedediah asks, through a mouthful of dough.

“I didn’t preheat your oven.”

“Too bad.” Jedediah pinches another bit of dough between his fingers and brings it to his lips. “Guess we’ll just have to eat this stuff.”

“You’re unbelievable, you know that?” Octavius says fondly. Jed’s already taken the cutting board from the table and carried it like a plate to the sofa.

“Come on over, let’s watch something,” he says. “We’ve got Netflix, take your pick.”

The dough is beyond salvaging. And even if Octavius ate raw cookie dough (which he _doesn’t),_ he wouldn’t touch the combination of store bought dough and half dried saliva that’s slowly congealing on the surface of the cutting board.

Right, then.

Ignoring Jedediah’s question (and ignoring his brain, which is screaming its head off at him for refusing the offer to share a couch with Jedediah), he strides over to the oven and punches in 350 degrees.

“Oi, what are you doing?”

“Preheating the oven.”

“Why? We ain’t usin’ this dough.” The sentiment of Jedediah’s words is multiplied tenfold by the fact that he says them with about half a cup of cookie dough lodged between his teeth.

“Do you have any eggs?”

“I think so, yeah- Octy, what’re you doing?”

“Making cookies. Aha, you do have eggs.”

“What are you talking about? We don’t have the dough.” Jedediah holds up the cutting board to show his point.

“Not yet, we don’t.” Octavius sets the container of eggs on Jedediah’s kitchen counter and begins searching through his cupboards. “Flour, flour, flour,” he mutters.

“You ain’t gonna… just. Make cookie dough.” Jedediah raises an eyebrow. “Are you?”

“Of course I am.” Octavius smiles. “I want cookies.”

o0O0o

They end up totaling with:

\- One lump of half eaten store bought cookie dough, abandoned on the cutting board on the couch,

\- Two cookie sheets complete with twelve lumps of dough each,

\- Flour. Everywhere. And-

\- About eight less eggs than they started with (even though the recipe only called for two.)

“You’re the worst baker I’ve ever seen,” Octavius says, brushing flour off of Jedediah’s nose as they jog up the stairs to his bedroom. “I swear.”

“Oh, hush up.” Jedediah sticks his tongue out, shoving the door open. Octavius squints as he looks inside and tries to mentally map out a pathway to the bed.

“Ha, your room’s terrible,” he says, stepping over piles of ignored laundry.

“Yep,” Jed says proudly, following him. “Come on, I’ll get my laptop set up. What do you want to watch?”

After about five minutes of sifting through genres and titles, they come to the conclusion that-

“We’re gonna have to break up, Octy.” Jed shrugs. “I dunno if I can date someone with that bad of a taste for movies.”

“I could say the same to you,” Octavius retorts. “Honestly. Who doesn’t like _How I Met Your Mother?”_

“People with brains?”

Octavius snorts.

“Let’s split the difference,” he suggests. “We’ll watch something we both hate.”

“That sounds like a terrible idea.”

“No, no- look, we can watch it and laugh at how bad it is. Right?”

“Fair enough.”

They go with _Bridget Jones’ Diary,_ because neither of them can particularly stand romantic comedies.

“Mr. _Darcy?”_ Octavius repeats, when the love interest’s name is finally spoken for the first time. “Seriously?”

“What’s wrong with that?” Jedediah shrugs. “It’s just a name, ain’t it?”

“You haven’t read a page of Jane Austin, have you?”

Jedediah brightens. “Is it anything like that Gatsby book?”

“Uh. No, not really. By the way, you still have my copy of Gatsby, don’t you?”

Jedediah nods. “I ain’t finished with it yet.”

“You’re reading it?”

“Course I am.”

“Only you, Jedediah, would read the book for your book project _after_ turning the project in.”

Onscreen, Colin Firth is doing his best to act very Colin Firth-y. He’s doing a pretty good job, Jedediah thinks. And it doesn’t hurt that he’s Colin Firth.

“Oi.”

He tears his eyes away from the screen. “Hm?”

“Don’t tell me you actually like this stuff.”

“I don’t!” He folds his arms. “I just happen to… appreciate it.”

“You appreciate Colin Firth.”

“A bit.”

“You think he’s better looking than I am?”

“Octy-”

“Would you rather have _Colin Firth_ here in bed with you than me?”

“He’s _British.”_

“Would you rather make cookies with _Colin Firth?_ I bet he doesn’t eat the cookie dough.” Octy’s mirth is nearly tangible, now. Jedediah wants to punch it.

“I bet he also doesn’t talk in the middle of watching a movie,” he retorts.

Octy flushes red. “You agreed we could comment if we wanted to, so I commented.”

“Well.” Jed searches for another point he can use against Octy. “Your comment was dumb.”

 _“You’re_ dumb. I bet you wouldn’t say _Colin Firth_ was dumb.”

Jedediah jumps him.

“You,” he says, smashing his lips onto Octy’s cheek, “are,” nose, “the most,” forehead, “dumb,” cheek again, “person,” other cheek, “ever.”

He aims for Octy’s lips but misses, grazing his jaw instead. They fall back onto the bed, Jedediah’s laptop falling to the floor with a _thud-_ but Jedediah doesn’t seem to mind, so Octavius lets it fall. His head ends up nested between two pillows, Jedediah pinning him down. Their noses brush for a moment, and Jedediah leans down-

Octavius bursts out laughing.

“Jedediah, you’re so- so-” He can’t think of an appropriate adjective, so he settles with dissolving back into giggles.

“Dumb?” Jedediah suggests. Octavius snorts.

“Come here.”

Jedediah tastes like cookie dough. Vaguely, Octavius wonders if he’s putting himself at the same risk as Jedediah has for salmonella poisoning, but quickly decides he doesn’t care. Neither does Jedediah, apparently, because he shoves his arm under and around Octavius’s ribcage.

Well, all right, then. This is happening.

Octavius is no stranger to this kind of thing. He’s had boyfriends before (and, on one memorable occasion, he’s had a girlfriend.) He knows the ropes. So when he presses a hand up to Jedediah’s chest and creeps it just under the rim of his jeans, he’s expecting a certain reaction. Maybe a moan, maybe reciprocation.

He doesn’t expect Jedediah to spring back and sit up, cutting this- whatever it is- short.

“I was just-” he begins, but Jedediah shakes his head. He doesn’t say anything, though, so Octavius tries again. “You all right?”

“You want to keep going?”

Jedediah’s eyes fall to his lap.

“You… don’t?”

“It’s not that I don’t want to,” Jedediah butts in, flaming red as a tomato. “I just- it’s not- I’ve never-”

“Hey, hey, calm down.” Octavius scoots back and sits up so his back is on the headboard of the bed and crosses his legs, facing Jed. “If you’re not ready, that’s fine. There’s nothing to worry about.”

“I’m sorry-”

“Don’t be sorry.” Octavius shakes his head. “We’ll get there when we get there.”

“I want to, Octy, I really want to- but I just.” He stops, screwing his eyes shut.

“We’ve got all the time in the world,” Octavius promises. “Plus, you look cute when you’re embarrassed.”

“I do not look _cute-”_

“Oh, yes you do-”

Downstairs, the kitchen timer whines. They jump, startled, and Jed hurriedly leaps off the bed.

“Come on,” he says, “my oven’s kinda cold; they might not be done yet. But we should check?”

Octavius nods, following him down the stairs and into the kitchen.

Jedediah’s right- they aren’t quite done. He punches in another five minutes on the timer and stretches his arms. When he’s finished, he just sort of… stares at the oven. It smells heavenly.

Octavius walks up behind him and wraps his arms around his waist.

“Hey,” he says, into his neck. “I still think you’re a pretty great boyfriend.”

Jed laughs weakly. “Yeah, well. You’re a pretty good boyfriend, too.”

“Better than Colin Firth?”

“I’m gonna _end_ you-”

o0O0o

They end up watching thirteen episodes of _My Little Pony,_ eating all but five of the cookies (only because Jed’s already stuffed himself with cookie dough,) and falling asleep on top of the covers, snuggled against each other.

At the bottom of the bed, their socked feet nuzzle together.

o0O0o

Out of their group of friends, Custer’s the only one not in one of Jed’s classes.

Octy, of course, is in his first period English class. But so are Teddy and Sacagawea. Lancelot’s taking the same pre-calculus class in second period, Nicky’s taking AP Latin with him, and Sacagawea also happens to be in his sixth period- Drawing and Painting B (he took Drawing and Painting A last year.)

As the bell rings, he strides past the stack of canvases and reaches behind the bookcase. Inch by inch, he pulls out his canvas, making sure not to jostle it. Not, of course, that a jostle would do it much harm, but still. He holds it beneath the back, taking long, slow steps back around the perimeter of the room, until he finds his table and lowers it down- ever so slowly.

When he’s finished, he looks proudly at it, letting out a breath.

It’s an abstract thing, covered in paint and pencil sketches. Some of it’s colored, some of it isn’t. But it all centers around… well, the center. There isn’t anything there yet, but he’s working on it.

“Wow,” someone says, from behind him. “That’s really good.”

Of course it’s Sacagawea. He smiles at her, rubs his neck.

“Thanks,” he says, shrugging. “It’s not really- I mean, I, uh. I’ve been working on it for a few weeks, so.”

“What’s it about?” She sits on the empty stool next to him, looking over the canvas.

“It’s, uh. An abstract sorta thing,” he says, shrugging. “It’s got a buncha parts to it, an’ they’ve all got to do with different songs. From, um. _Dark Side of the Moon.”_

“Oh, interesting.” Sacagawea points to a spot just above the center, where he’s penciled out and half colored a man’s face. “I like that bit.”

“Thanks,” he says, looking down on it. It _is_ good, isn’t it?

He spends the day with headphones over his ears, the familiar strains of _Breathe_ pumping through him. But as hard as he tries, he can’t get the pencil to say what he wants. He can’t picture the image of what the music says. He can’t mix the paint quite right to get a color that really means something. He tries to touch up the penciled-in face and messes up the eye. When he erases it, the marks smudge together. He gets a proper eraser and gets rid of the whole thing, leaving behind the splotches of paint he’d colored it with before.

_You want to keep going?_

He steals a sheet of heavy duty paper and, setting the canvas to the side, mixes his colors together on the palate. He begins slowly, brush testing out the paint’s consistency, the paper’s give.

_You… don’t?_

The brush staggers to the side at the end of his stroke and gives the whole canvas a feel of misalignment. He tries a circle and ends up with a half wobbly bean. He adds in another color to try to help the poor painting get on its feet.

_It’s not that I don’t want to, I just- it’s not- I’ve never-_

God, why is he so _stupid?_

The paintbrush flares up, striking down the page and cutting the green with an angry yellow line.

Why couldn’t he have just gone with it? Octy wouldn’t have hurt him, or anything. There wasn’t anything to be scared about. He’d have enjoyed it, he knows he would have. So why had he been such a coward?

He shakes his hand, sending the paintbrush to the side in a tight sinusoid.

If he can’t even do… that, then what kind of a boyfriend is he? Why should someone like Octavius even bother sticking with him? And eating the dough hadn’t been charming, had it? It had been annoying, probably. Octavius had bought that just for them- God, he’s an idiot.

He washes up his materials and comes back to the table to find Sacagawea staring at his painting again. Her eyes swipe the top half, land on the empty smudge of color, and stay there. He lifts the canvas off the table and tucks it to his chest, defensively.

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s not finished,” he says, shaking his head.

“I think it’s lovely.”

“It ain’t done.” He frowns. “I’m… gonna work on it. Tonight. You can see it tomorrow.”

“Fair enough.” Sacagawea shrugs. “It really is good, Jed.”

Jed forces his mouth the curve up into a smile. Because she’s Sacagawea and she always deserves a smile.

o0O0o

“WHY. CAN’T I. GET. THIS. _RIGHT?”_

With every word, he slashes the paintbrush onto the canvas. The bristles bend under the force, smashing apart. The metal rim around the brush scrapes the canvas.

The intricate pencil lines are smudged beyond repair, the careful blends and palates of colors are ruined, all smeared together with the angry red trail, creating a mixture of colors that swirls together to make-

Brown. An ugly, sickly brown. It’s mostly red, but Jedediah knows it’s brown. Even if it looks like it’s red and green and blue and yellow and purple and black, he knows it’s brown. It will always be brown. And the only thing it can make is an ugly mark on the canvas. An ugly, permanent mark.

He throws the saturated paintbrush onto the floor, not caring if he stains his carpet. The plastic plate he’s been using as a palate topples to the carpet along with it, landing paint side down.

He slams his hand down on the canvas, into the paint. He streaks it sideways, splattering speckles of brown on the wall. He curves his fingernails and scrapes them down, down, to the bottom of the frame, until the white base shows through in four thin lines. He heaves his arm back and punches it, making a dent and another crater in the color. He punches it again, again, again, claws it with his nails so hard that it tears, rips at the tear until the canvas is torn in two, shreds the strip he’s pulled into a hundred pieces, throws them at the paint until they stick, takes a pair of scissors and stabs everywhere he can reach, tears and tears and _tears-_

And tears, oh, there are tears.

He drops to his knees in front of the painting, hands shaking. The scissors flop down on the carpet.

Slowly, he picks up the paintbrush and the palate, walks to the bathroom, and washes them off.

o0O0o

That night, he tosses and turns until his bed is too hot.

He can’t get the memory of being in this bed with Octavius, of saying all the stupid, stupid things he’d said. He flops from side to side, blanket bunching up and falling off the edge of the bed.

So when he comes to class the next morning, he’s dead tired.

He tells Octavius he was up all night finishing _Gatsby,_ but forgot the book at home. And thank god, Octavius doesn’t seem to question him.

He makes it until sixth period before someone notices.

His canvas is stored behind the bookcase- he’d dropped by before first period and hidden it there for the day- and he doesn’t want to touch it. But he does, because what else is he going to do?

It’s horrible.

He looks it over for the first time since last night, taking in the last shreds of evidence that this painting once used to be something- anything. Whatever it had once been, it’s now destroyed. There’s no chance of repairing it. He’s going to have to start again.

Tears well up in his eyes- partly from exhaustion, partly from the sheer loss of this painting, partly from the memory of that night.

“Wow. That’s… _amazing.”_

He startles at Sacagawea’s voice, spinning around to face her. He doesn’t realize it, but his hands are shaking. He grabs the ruined canvas and holds it to his chest.

“This ain’t- it messed up, I gotta start again,” he stammers, shaking his head. “It ain’t nothing’ good.”

“Jedediah,” Sacagawea says, slowly.

“M’ sorry, I know I said you could look at it today but it ain’t finished- it’s all ugly and ruined, I gotta do it again-”

“Jed, you’re crying.”

Oh. So he is.

He scrubs his sleeve over his eyes and screws them shut, looking away. He can’t stand this. No one else in class notices him but Sacagawea, apparently, because he doesn’t hear anyone else commenting. He thanks his lucky stars that he’s sitting in the back corner of the classroom, where no one can hear him over the din of the teacher’s music.

He feels the canvas being tugged gently out of his hands, hears it rest on the table. Sacagawea’s stool honks awkwardly as it scoots closer. She doesn’t move to hug him, she just sits and waits.

He tells her everything.

o0O0o

“An’ I- I just got so mad- I couldn’t do it,” he says, looking forlornly at the canvas. “So I just didn’t care anymore, I guess. I did the first thing that came to mind and I just…” He gestures vaguely with his hands. “I ruined it.”

“I think it’s beautiful.”

“It ain’t. It’s ugly.”

“Jed.”

“I just- I can’t stop thinkin’ about it.” He shakes his head, arms folded. “I wish I’d said somethin’ else- I must have looked so _stupid.”_

“Was he angry at you?”

“What?”

Sacagawea fixes him with one of her looks. “Was Octavius angry at you when you said you wanted to stop?”

“Well. No,” he admits. “But he probably thought I was an idiot.”

“It sounded to me like he was perfectly happy.” Sacagawea sets a hand on the table. “And it sounds to me like the last thing he wants is for you to beat yourself up like this.”

“Wea, you don’t understand,” he tries.

“I understand that you two are not only adorable together, you’re happy.” She smiles, and he can’t help but try to smile back. Sacagawea always deserves a smile. “You like him, right?”

“Course I do.” He really does smile, this time.

“Why?”

“Well- because- because he’s Octy.” Jed shrugs. “Because- because he stared at my ass from the bleachers for weeks before I even knew his name.”

Sacagawea giggles. “Why else?”

“I dunno.” He shrugs. “Because he helps me in English- and precalc, because he’s a perfectionist and he can’t turn anything in without making sure he’s dotted all his stupid ‘I’s, an’- he didn’t care that I ate all the cookie dough. And he’s better than Colin Firth.”

“Then I don’t see any reason why he wouldn’t want to be with you just as much. Clearly he does.”

Jed sniffs unconsciously.

“But he’s been with other guys before. Why would he stay with me if I can’t give him… that?”

“Because he likes you,” Sacagawea says gently. “And he doesn’t just want to be with you just for sex.”

Jed blushes at the word.

“If that’s all he wanted,” she continues, “do you really think he would have spent weeks on the bleachers without talking to you?”

Jed shrugs.

“You guys are friends first,” she reminds him. “And that won’t change.”

“Wea-”

“Don’t worry, Jed. He’s not going to think you’re an idiot just because you were uncomfortable. You just need some time, that’s all.”

_We’ve got all the time in the world._

Jed smiles. “Yeah.”

o0O0o

When Octy doesn’t show up for practice for the third day in a row, Jed begins to get concerned.

He goes through the motions, listens to coach Daley tell them the preferred strategies of their opposing team for their next game, jogs along the track, does lunges across the field- all while glancing at the bleachers every few minutes.

But Octavius is nowhere to be found.

Maybe, he thinks, it’s just too cold outside for Octy. He must just be staying inside because of the chill? After all, there’s a chance of snow over the weekend and the grass has been consistently frosty. Yeah, he thinks. Octy’s probably just watching from inside. Or just inside. Or he’s already gone home.

He changes back into his regular clothes and laughs alongside the rest of his team, grateful to be inside again where it’s nice and warm. He finishes up and he’s just about to head for home when-

“Octy?”

Octavius freezes in the middle of the hallway. Jed jogs up to him. He looks exhausted, his hair is- damp?- and he’s carrying a bag over his shoulder. Jed glances down at it, but Octavius zips it closed before he can see what’s inside.

“Hey, Jed,” he says, smiling brightly. “You just, uh- came out of practice, right?”

“Yeah.” He frowns. “You weren’t there.”

“Oh, uh.” Octavius looks at the floor. “It was cold, so I.” He pauses. “Watched from the window.”

Oh. Well. Jed was right.

“See you first period, then,” he says, leaning over and pecking him on the forehead. Octavius reddens and gives him a kiss on the nose in return. What a dork.

o0O0o

“All right, you guys,” Daley says, kneeling down. “Our first big game is this weekend. Do you think you’re ready?”

“The Smithsonian Academy is going to down!” Attila roars beside him, and the whole team cheers.

“Yeah, they’re going down,” Daley agrees, grinning. “It’s been a long few months, but I think you guys are ready. Now split into two teams and get out on the field- I’ll be choosing who’s starting on Saturday.”

After this weekend’s game, it’ll be winter break- they used to call it Christmas break before a group of parents wrote a letter to the school- and he won’t have to worry about a thing. His family goes down to visit his mum’s sister every few years, but this year they’re staying home. He’s glad- he’ll miss his aunt and uncle, sure, but he’s relieved that there isn’t the added holiday stress of packing and paying for the tickets and the car ride to the airport and the arguing in the terminal and the-

Christmas will be good this year, he can feel it.

Yeah, Octy’s gonna come over. They can give each other presents, right?

He looks to the empty stands again and watches for movement behind the window, but Octavius never comes.

Jed runs onto the field, shaking his head to concentrate.

o0O0o

Saturday arrives, and though it’s beyond freezing, the sky’s clear and sunny as anything. Perfect game conditions. Coach Daley gives them a quick pep talk before they go out onto the field- _their_ field, not some other school’s- and leaves them all with a thrill of exhilaration that nothing but a game can bring.

Jed’s starting, this game- which seems incredible, because he really hadn’t thought he was doing that well, but maybe Coach Daley just wanted to give him a chance- but then again this is only the first real game they’ve had, wouldn’t he want the strongest players on first, and he’s doing pretty well actually, bringing the ball down the field, avoiding the other players, until the second half starts and then the cheerleaders come on and he catches the ball and he’s about to take it and run and-

-and-

-and _Octavius is in a skirt._

The football slips out of his hands and onto the grass, completely forgotten. He can do nothing but stare at Octavius, who’s jumping around and fucking _cartwheeling_ in a skirt that really leaves nothing to the imagination and oh god he can see Octy’s ass-

_“SMITH, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?”_

He’s got a split second to register the fact that Coach Daley is yelling at him, really yelling, before something collides with his back and sends him hurtling towards the ground. The ground is cold and hard and thankfully not wet, so he feels the dirt scrape across his face instead of smear all over it. He braces himself as about five other players pile on top of him.

Shit, he probably could have grabbed some ground if he hadn’t been so damn distracted-

Octy in a skirt. Right. That.

“All right, all right,” he hears Daley shout, as the team breaks up. “Timeout!”

He gets benched.

But it’s not all bad, because from here, he gets a rather fantastic view of the cheerleaders. And by that, he means he gets a fantastic fucking view of the certainly _not_ fingertip-length cheerleading skirt that’s hanging off of Octy’s hips. He’s the only male cheerleader- they probably didn’t have any male cheerleading outfits, ha. And hey, it looks fucking fantastic on him. It’s red and white- school colors, of course- and it just swishes and sways with every second. The pompoms whip through the air- up, down, over, up again- and he’s god damn entranced.

“-Jed?”

He sits up a little straighter. Coach Daley’s looking at him sternly.

“Yeah,” he says, clearing his throat. “Yeah. Yeah, coach?”

“What happened out there?” Coach Daley demands. He’s not particularly threatening, but Jedediah can’t help but practically cower under his gaze. “You were on top of it, and then… you fell off.”

“I just, um.” He taps his helmet with his fingernails. “I got distracted.”

Coach Daley eyes the rows of cheerleaders, all whooping and dancing. He raises an eyebrow. Jed blushes. Coach Daley sighs.

“All right, Smith. From now on, you’re starting on the bench. I’ll substitute you in, though.”

He nods gratefully as Daley leaves, and goes back to watching fucking _Octavius_ _in a skirt._

o0O0o

“You ruined it!”

“I didn’t ruin it- if anything, _you_ ruined football for me.”

“You got sent off- I had a cheer ready for you, and everything.”

“Yeah, well, I ain’t gonna start any of the games anymore- least not until I get better. I gotta feelin’ like this was my big chance, and I blew it.”

“Well, you had a big chance to see me cheering you on, and you blew that, too.”

“Can I blow something else?”

“You’re dumb.”

“You’re dumber- ow! The hell was that for?”

“I’m serious, you know. I’ve spent weeks making this stupid thing perfect. Wrote it myself, and everything.”

“You stole a rhyming dictionary from Ms. Orsay’s- you said that was for an extra credit poetry assignment!”

“Well. It was.”

“You liar.”

“Maybe.”

“Hey, uh. If I’m real good, d’you think you could show me that cheer of yours?”

“If you’re really good.”

“Heh.”

_“Maybe.”_

o0O0o

It doesn’t start snowing until the weekend, when winter break officially starts.

Of course, none of the teachers seem to understand that winter break means winter _break,_ because Jedediah’s got at _least_ an hour’s worth of work ahead of him this week. It’s absolutely inhumane.

Octy’s got more, of course. But he doesn’t seem to mind.

“Come on, Jed,” he says over the phone, that Sunday. “You haven’t done any of your break work, yet?”

“No?” Jed snorts. “Why would I?”

“Well, you don’t wanna be stuck doing it over Christmas, do you?”

“I _am_ stuck doing it over Christmas- I’m stuck doin’ it over Christmas break!”

“Winter break.”

“Whatever. I’ll do it after Christmas.”

“No, you won’t.”

“Nah, I won’t.”

“Come to my house for Christmas.”

Jed blinks. “What?”

“I’ll help you get your work done- I’m not letting you copy, mind you, so don’t get any ideas.”

“You want me over for Christmas?”

Now it’s Octy’s turn to pause. Jed can only imagine his face- except he can’t, because what the hell? Octy wants him to come over for Christmas?

“I mean,” Octy says, and Jed can just hear his mind backtracking. “If you don’t want to, that’s totally fine- if you want to stay with your family-”

“No,” Jed says, shaking his head. “No, no, that’s- great, actually. I’d love to come.”

“Oh.” Octy laughs, sending a little static through the speaker. Jed laughs back. “Okay, um,” Octy says, sounding as cute as he ever has, “Just come by around nine or so, we’re having Christmas dinner.”

“Woah, you eat late.”

“No, no- nine in the _morning._ We eat dinner early, then do presents, then just sort of… hang out, I guess.”

Oh, _fuck._

“Cool,” he says, weakly. “Yeah, I’ll be there.”

“Great! See you then,” Octy says, and then the line is dead and Jedediah suddenly has a much bigger problem than break homework.

o0O0o

“Glad you could make it!” Octavius greets from the door, pulling him into a hug. Jed hugs him back, trying not to look as nervous as he feels.

“Hey,” he says, smiling shyly as they pull away. “Merry Christmas.”

“Yeah, Happy Christmas,” Octavius says, grinning brightly. He takes Jed’s hand and pulls him into the house, shutting the door behind him.

Jed sets his backpack on the floor by the door and follows Octy into the house, looking around. He’s been here before, of course, but it just seems different, now. It smells like Christmas, for starters. Octy’s mum must be baking gingerbread. And along with the delicious aromas wafting from the kitchen, there’s a fresh blast of pine from the living room.

The tree’s dusted with ornaments and tinsel- they never have tinsel at Jed’s house, of course; mum says the cats could eat it- and topped with a metal plated star. The ornaments are a mishmash of modern, metal spheres, old-fashioned straw figures, a few picture frames, and candy canes.

“Dad says it doesn’t look very neat,” Octavius says, leading him into the living room. “But I like it.”

“Yeah,” Jed says, staring at the tree.

“Anyway, you’re just in time for dinner.”

Oh, right. Dinner. As in, nine o clock in the morning dinner.

He follows Octy into the kitchen and is greeted with the sight of both his parents and another man sitting beside Octy’s dad. In the middle of the table is a pan about the width of the table, filled to the brim with a golden topped lasagna, still bubbling at the edges. Jed can almost taste the cheese sizzling at the corners of the pan.

There’s a cast iron skillet with what looks like scalloped potatoes, a bowl of roasted carrots, a plate with rolls that send steam up through the napkins covering them. There’s a pitcher with ruby red juice inside, lemon slices dancing around the ice cubes. There’s an empty seat at the end, and beside it is-

Another empty seat. With a plate and a napkin and a Christmas cracker.

“Ah, so _this_ is the famous Jedediah,” the man Jed doesn’t know says, and he knows he’s got nothing to worry about.

They eat and talk and drink and pop crackers and swap paper hats and tell the terrible, _terrible_ jokes on the slips of papers- and for nearly an hour and a half, Jedediah completely forgets about the package tucked in the side of his backpack.

“Well,” Octavius’s uncle, Marius, says, clapping his hands and breaking through the gentle wall of laughter bubbling around the table, “I think we’ve exhausted this feast, so I say we move on down to the living room and open up a few of those presents, eh?”

“A few?” Octavius teases.

“Oh, yes,” Marius says, very seriously. “The rest, we throw away. It’s Christmas tradition, after all.”

Octavius snorts.

They don’t even clean up their dishes- when Jedediah tried, Octy’s dad had had to force him away from the table to stop him, saying that dishes could wait- it was time for presents, now.

They sit in a circle in the living room, and Marius plops on a bright red Santa hat, crouching by the tree. Jed’s barely finished setting his hastily wrapped present under the tree when Octy pulls Jed over to the couch. He presses a kiss to Jed’s cheek before tugging the throw blanket up over their legs.

“Well, let’s see who’s first,” Marius says jovially, and Jed can’t even bring himself to think he looks ridiculous, because it’s Christmas and the man’s wearing a Santa hat and Octy’s in his lap and he can still smell the remains of Christmas dinner and he’s so _happy._

“Looks like our first present is for Camilla!” Marius announces, holding a bag aloft. “From…” he reads the tag dramatically, squinting his eyes. “Rufus!”

Octy’s father, Rufus, shoots Camilla a smile.

She takes the bag and sifts through the tissue paper before pulling out a hardcover book. Apparently it’s a book she loves, because she immediately opens to the first page and begins devouring it.

They go through the bulk of the gifts one by one, and Jed even gets a few. Camilla gives him a copy of _The Catcher in the Rye,_ Rufus gives him a nice set of chocolates, and Marius even gives him a stuffed tiger. Attached by a string tied around its neck is a bag with a set of joke gifts- a pencil that doubles as a slingshot, a shock pen, and a small deflated whoopee cushion.

When there’s only a few presents left, Marius picks up Jed’s box, wrapped in crisp red-and-green striped paper, and hands it to Octavius.

“You didn’t have to get me a present,” Octavius says, picking at the wrapping.

“Course I did.” Jed shrugs. “It’s Christmas.”

He watches as Octy opens it, slowly, slowly- watches as he takes out the cardboard box from the wrapping and tugs it open, pulls out-

A copy of _The Great Gatsby._

“Figured since I, uh, sort of stole yours,” Jed says, shrugging. Octavius looks in the box and laughs, pulling out another book. It’s emblazoned with the title _The Love of the Last Tycoon._

“You got me-”

“It’s by the same guy,” Jed says, shrugging. “Thought you might like it.”

Octavius kisses him, then, right in front of his parents and his uncle, and Jed blushes redder than the hat on Marius’s head.

“And we’ve got just two left, let’s see,” Marius says, rubbing his hands together. “This one looks like it’s for- Jed!” He hands over a small bag, tissue paper spiking up out the top.

Octavius nudges his arm.

Jed pulls out a small box, and opens it to find-

“Oh, wow.”

He pulls out the ring and the pendant, looks at them both in awe. They’ve both got the same design- a circular pendant for the necklace and a circular addition to the ring. And as he looks at the design, he can see-

“That’s the moon,” Octy says, pointing at the ring. “And that one’s the earth,” he adds, pointing then at the necklace. “I didn’t know if you were a jewelry kind of person- I can return them if you don’t-”

“They’re beautiful,” he says, slipping the necklace over his head. “Thanks, Octy.”

Octy takes the ring and slips it on his finger shyly.

It’s an odd moment.

Because of course it’s not a marriage proposal, or anything. They haven’t even been together four months yet. But it’s something, and it makes Jed think. What if they got married, huh? What if they graduated and went to college in similar places and moved in together and got a dog or a cat and-

Yeah, it’s not an engagement ring. It’s not even a promise ring.

But damn, it holds a lot of promise.

o0O0o

Jed actually forgets about New Year’s.

His family doesn’t do anything for the holiday- they don’t make resolutions, they don’t go over to the neighbor’s house, they don’t even get champagne- so when he hears a sudden tumultuous roar from outside his window, Jed thinks for a moment that something’s gone horribly wrong, that there’s someone out there with a gun going crazy.

And then, of course, he remembers. He snorts to himself, going back to his computer.

The fireworks don’t stop, which makes it all the more difficult to focus on these stupid chapter review questions. They’ve finished with _The Great Gatsby_ and are supposed to read through the first three chapters of their next book, _The Things They Carried,_ by the time they get back from break.

The fireworks pop and fizzle, scream and clatter.

Well, he doesn’t have to have these questions done for another four days.

He shuts his book and saves the document, closing it as well. He stretches his arms behind his back, groaning as the ligaments slide into place. It’s only midnight, he reasons. He’s got three or four hours left before he’s going to get tired. So that just leaves him with a puzzle of what to do.

As if on cue, his phone buzzes.

He unlocks it and swipes to the text from Octy that’s just come in.

_Happy New Year!!! Xoxo_

He smiles to himself, thinking. It hasn’t been a year since they’ve been together- but will he get the same text next year? What about the year after that? He knows most high school relationships tend to break up pretty fast; sometimes they last a few months, sometimes a year or so. But he doesn’t see himself breaking up with Octy anytime soon. He’ll never get bored of Octy- and he can’t imagine them fighting.

**_happy new year :)_ **

He hits send absently.

_Mom and Dad are out with my uncle for New Year’s drinks; I said I didn’t want to go._

Jedediah snorts. Only Octavius would use a semicolon in a text. He’s about to send a picture of himself alone in his room, shrugging, when he gets another text.

_Want to come over? We can watch a movie!_

He chews his lip. His parents probably wouldn’t want him to go. Maybe. It’s really late.

**_id like to but i gotta take care of henry_ **

It’s not even a good lie. Maybe that’s the point.

_Bring her over, then._

**_are u serious_ **

_Sure!_

 Fuck it. It’s New Year’s. Maybe this year he can resolve to do the things he wants to do.

Like take his cat to his boyfriend’s house so they can watch a movie.

o0O0o

“Get _off-_ Octy, make her get off.”

“She’s your cat.”

“Yeah, but if I shove her off, she won’t talk to me for, like, three days.”

“Or at least until she gets hungry.”

“Ha, ha. Henry, _move-_ I can’t even see the dumb screen-”

Octavius circles his arms around all 23 pounds of Henry and heaves her up off Jedediah’s chest. He sets her in his own lap where she sits, content, and absentmindedly scratches behind her ears.

“See?” he says, when she nuzzles his hand. “She loves me.”

“Traitor,” Jedediah mutters. Octavius kicks his shin. “Anyway, you got the English subtitles?”

“Yep.” Octavius scrolls through the DVD menu and finds the ‘play’ button. “You ready?”

“Ugh.” Jedediah pouts. “Next time, we’re watching something else. Like. Toy Story.” He folds his arms, even as Octavius tosses the end of the blanket over him.

“You just like cowboys,” Octavius teases, setting the movie to go and leaning back. In his lap, Henry adjusts her legs.

“No, I just don’t like horror.”

“If you get scared, you can cuddle up with me.”

“With that dumb thing between us?” Jedediah glares at Henry. “I don’t think so.”

o0O0o

_“Don’t just stand, there, KILL HER… what’s the knife got to do with anything… yeah, that’s it.”_

Amplified stabbing sound effects fill the room. Jedediah scrunches up his nose. Henry decides she’s had just about enough of this nonsense and leaps to the ground with a very, _very_ dignified _FLUMP._

“Hey,” Octavius murmurs. Jedediah jumps about half a foot off the couch, tucking the blanket to his chin. Octavius snorts.

“Shut up,” Jedediah hisses.

“That offer for cuddling’s still up,” Octavius reminds him. “If you wanted.”

“Go cuddle yourself,” Jed snaps, blanket still pulled up beneath his chin.

“Whatever you say.”

o0O0o

_“I got him, right between the eyes, Ally! I got the fucker right between the eyes.”_

Henry jumps up onto the couch and Jedediah makes this sort of grunting noise- it almost sounds like the noise he’d make if he’d stubbed his toe on the wall. Henry immediately panics, fumbling around on the couch, and ends up trapped under the blanket. Jed tugs at the blanket furiously, trying to get her out, and at long last, she rolls to the floor.

Henry sneezes once and stalks out of the room, tail held high.

Octavius bursts into laughter, clutching his chest.

“Octy, don’t you dare-”

“That was- that was the funniest thing,” he pants, watching Henry turn around the corner. “You were so scared, oh my god.”

“She jumped up on me, Octy, the hell was I supposed to do?” Jed’s face is turning red now, Octavius just knows it. “Ain’t my fault.”

“She’s a cat, Jed.” Octavius rolls his eyes. “Come here.”

“I ain’t comin’ nowhere.”

“No, no, come here.” Octavius gestures to his side of the couch. “And gimme some of that blanket, it’s freezing.”

“I said I ain’t comin’.”

Octavius groans. “Suit yourself.”

o0O0o

It ends, as all movies do, and Octavius flips the lights on. Jed’s tucked into the corner of the couch, arms folded, chewing his lip.

“Well?” Octavius asks, shrugging. “What’d you think? It’s my uncle’s favorite.”

“Marius can go suck a dick,” Jed snaps.

“You’re impossible.”

“I _told_ you I didn’t like that kinda stuff,” Jed protests. “An’ now I’m gonna go home an’ go to sleep an’ dream about a stupid owl mask, you numb-nut.”

“Well,” Octavius says, slowly. “We could watch something else, I guess. Take your mind off of owl headed murderers?”

“Yeah? Like what?” Jed lowers the blanket curiously.

“How about _Cannibal Holocaust?_ It’s a classic.”

Jed scowls. “I hate you.”

“Hey, it’s more cheesey than anything else.” Octavius shrugs. “Come on, you like zombies, right?”

“Do I even get to say no?”

“Nope.”

Jed huffs and curls up on the couch, tucking the blanket over his head.

Octavius opens the wooden case below his television and sifts through the hoard of DVDs. He has to reach all the way into the back to find it. He pops the case open, takes the disc out, and swaps it with _Stagefright: Aquarius._

He turns the volume all the way down, waits for the menu to show, presses play, and slides the volume back up.

The familiar strains of Randy Newman’s _You’ve Got a Friend in Me_ wash over the living room, and Jedediah pops his head out of the blankets. He looks first at the screen, then at Octavius. And then-

And then his face lights up.

He scoots over next to Octavius and slings the blanket up over both of them, grinning stupidly.

“I’m only watching this for you,” Octavius reminds him. “So you’d better appreciate it.”

“Aw, hush. I know you like it.”

“I do _not-”_

“I know you like _me.”_

“That, I can’t deny.”

Jedediah blows a raspberry on his neck. He allows it.

o0O0o

High school couples are disgusting.

“Seriously?” Jed grumbles under his breath, as the door is thrown open to reveal Lancelot clad in a toga, complete with a set of fake wings strapped to his back. The rest of the class laughs and claps, and Mr. Ahkmenrah just sighs, acknowledging that he’s not getting any further into his lesson today.

“Go on,” he says, waving an arm.

“Cupid’s arrows!” Lancelot proclaims, and the two girls behind him giggle. They’re all holding tiny white baskets filled with heart shaped lollipops. And as there was no way to make “candy-gram” into a Valentine’s day themed catch phrase, the student body council had decided on “cupid’s arrows.” Which is dumb. Cupid’s arrows are dumb.

Lancelot goes up and down the aisles, reading off names and handing out the lollipops- Sacagawea gets one, of course, as does that one kid Jed can never remember the name of. And when Lancelot passes by Custer, he pauses for a moment before handing him a lollipop.

Custer looks as if he can’t quite comprehend what’s happening- he doesn’t even pick it up, he just stares- but before he can ask who sent it, Lancelot’s spun around and headed for the door.

He twirls, and the toga flutters around his legs.

“A very Merry Valentine’s Day to you all,” he proclaims, and swishes out the door.

Mr. Ahkmenrah clears his throat.

“Now that that’s out of the way,” he says, shuffling a stack of papers- possibly just to make it look like he’s saying something important, because he shuffles papers kind of a lot- “I’d like to return to this week’s vocabulary list.”

But how the hell did _Custer_ get a stupid lollipop? Oh, no, Jed knows. Lance and Custer are perfect for each other, the idiots. Yeah, they’d spend hours together braiding each other’s hair.

Jed mushes the heel of his palm into his cheek and pretends not to be upset.

o0O0o

“Jed, what the hell are you doing?”

Jed jumps at the loud and braising voice of- oh god, it’s Amelia.

Stupid Amelia. She’s got near perfect grades and a nearer deafening voice and an even nearer ego-shattering attitude. Amelia transferred over just after winter break and, as she happened to be Sacagawea’s old friend (probably from the internet), she’s been reluctantly added to their group.

Well, most of the group likes her.

Actually, everyone in the group likes her, save for Jed.

“You didn’t sign up to help organize the-”

“Amelia, just-” He holds a hand out, and Amelia stops in her tracks. “Just. Slow down a second, ‘kay?”

Amelia huffs and puts her hands on her hips. “You said last week when we had lunch outside that you were going to help organize the gym for the Valentine’s fundraiser this weekend, but the list went up on Monday and you still haven’t written your name.” She frowns. “Why not?”

“Cause your name was already written on it,” Jed says, deadpan. Amelia rolls her eyes.

“Come on, Jed. Live a little.”

“I don’ exactly call decorating the gym ‘living’, Amelia.”

“You’d help rack up community service hours- if I’m not mistaken, you’re sorely behind, and you’ve only got-”

“Why do you care so much?” he shouts, crossing his arms. Amelia goes quiet immediately, shrinking back a little. Jed sighs. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to shout. But-” He shrugs. “Why is this stupid thing so important?”

“Well,” Amelia says, in the quietest voice Jed’s ever heard her speak in- until now, he hadn’t known it was possible for her to say anything without the air of having rehearsed it several hundred times- “Everyone else on the list is- well, I don’t know them.”

Jed blinks.

“And I just thought that maybe if you’d come along and help, then I wouldn’t feel so gosh darn out of place.”

Well, shit.

The vote is in, the tallys have been counted. Jedediah Smith is a Grade-A, picture perfect, definition of an asshole.

“I guess,” he says, unfolding his arms a bit, “I could probably use a few more service hours.”

The smile Amelia gives him is worth every minute he’s going to have to spend cooped up in that stupid gym.

o0O0o

They fill the gym with heart balloons ranging from white to pink to red to purple, streamers draping from the ceiling, glitter in places it _absolutely should not be,_ and a thousand other annoying pink bullshit things.

Both Jed’s hat and his hair are liberally coated in glitter by the time they’re sent home.

But hey, he’s got five hours of community service stacked up.

And actually, if they could get a few lights in here to color up the place, it wouldn’t look to bad. Jed squints, trying to imagine what would happen if they could dim the lights down, maybe get some red and blue highlights, _maybe_ get a disco ball to spice things up a little-

Huh. He almost feels bad that he’s not going to the dance.

o0O0o

Jedediah’s mood drops significantly over the next week.

The dance is Friday night, so the gym’s off limits- which of course means that every time he passes by it or has to take a gym class outside (in the fucking _freezing_ cold), he has to think about the fact that it’s covered in pink and purple and balloons and streamers and he’s probably never going to see it look this good ever again.

He doesn’t even try to stay awake in first period. And he doesn’t notice Octavius giving him side glances the whole time.

Lunch rolls around and he can barely bring himself to eat his sandwich. He chews off a bit, and just… lets it sit there. Congealing on his tongue. After wallowing in blank thoughts for long enough, he forces himself to chew and swallow it.

The group’s probably eating at their usual table. Jed’s tucked away in the last place anyone would suspect- the library. He knows he’s in a rotten mood and he knows the rest of them will pick up on it. And it’s not like it’s their fault he’s like this, so why should he sit there and be gloomy around them?

He picks at the edge of his sandwich, watches the crumbs fall to the floor. He’s not going to eat it.

“Hey.”

The sandwich slips out of his hands and lands on the library carpet. Oh, now he’s _definitely_ not going to eat it.

“Octavius,” he says, sitting up. Octy just sits right next to him, no invitation needed.

“Thought you’d be here.”

“You did?” He thumbs over the ring on his finger (the ring that he only takes off to sleep and to shower) and tries a smile.

“Well, you weren’t in Mr. Kahmunrah’s classroom,” Octavius says, shrugging. “So, are you going to tell me what’s wrong?”

“Nope.” He doesn’t even bother denying it.

“Come on, you’ve been gloomy all week.” Octavius folds his arms.

“Octy-”

“I know you hate school dances,” Octy says.

“It’s not the dance,” Jed says, shaking his head. “It ain’t even a dance, it’s a fundraiser. An’ that’s not it.”

“Oh, isn’t it?”

“It’s not.”

“You don’t have to go if you don’t want to.”

“Octy, seriously-”

“And why did you even go set it up, anyway-”

“I want to go to the dance, all right?” Jed bursts out. There’s in the back of the library, so no one turns to look at them- but it’s jarring enough that Octavius actually takes a moment before speaking again.

“You what?”

“I want to go.” Jed shrugs. “I dunno. I don’t like dances- and this ain’t even a dance- but. I just thought. If.”

“If you went with me?” Octavius suggests. Jed looks up, meets his eyes.

“You don’t like dances,” he says.

“I like you.”

Octavius snatches his hand- the one with the ring that he almost never takes off- and squeezes it.

“You want to go to the dance with me?” he asks. Jed just nods slowly, manages a real smile this time.

“Yeah,” he says, nodding again. “Yeah, um. Yes.”

“Good.” Octavius pecks his cheek. The bell rings, signaling the end of lunch. “Well, I guess we should go- mmmpth!”

Hidden behind the rows of bookshelves, they kiss and kiss and kiss.

Both of them are late to fifth period.

Neither one cares.

o0O0o

Mr. Ahkmenrah doesn’t even bat an eye as the door’s thrown open the next morning, just sits back and waits for it to be over.

Lancelot- complete with toga and fake wings- prances around the classroom, handing out the lollipops. He gives one to Custer again, hands one to Nicky- probably from his dad, Jed thinks-  and Jed’s about to pull out his phone to pass the time when-

“Jedediah Smith?”

A lollipop- red and heart shaped and full of more chemicals than the Chem Lab- drops onto his desk.

Jedediah looks up, but Lancelot just winks before fluttering out of the classroom.

Jedediah unwraps it and sticks it in his mouth, not even bothering to hide the smug smile simmering behind his lips.

o0O0o

And the dance might not have perfect colored lighting, but it does have a disco ball. And a pretty decent soundtrack. And Octy’s dancing in his arms for the most part of it, so.

Maybe dances aren’t that bad after all.

o0O0o

“You are.”

“Mmhmm.”

“Without a doubt.”

“Mmm _hmm.”_

“The worst kisser I’ve ever seen.”

“Mmh- hey!”

Octavius laughs and Jedediah whacks him with his hat. Octavius leans back against his bedroom wall, arms behind his head.

“Well, then, you’re the worst boyfriend I’ve ever had,” Jed pouts.

“I’m the _only_ boyfriend you’ve ever had,” Octy points out, giving him a look.

“Well, I’m the only boyfriend _you’ve_ ever had,” Jed retorts. Octavius just raises an eyebrow. “Oh,” Jed says, blinking.

“Not everyone waits until they’re in junior year to have a gay panic.”

“I didn’t have a _gay panic.”_

“Sure you didn’t.”

“I had a gay… moment.”

“Well,” Octavius says, leaning over and kissing his forehead, “even though you’re not my first one, you’re definitely my favorite boyfriend.”

“You’re dumb.”

Octavius snorts.

o0O0o

“Hey, Jed, scoot over.”

Jed fiddles with his earbud- it’s caught in the string of his necklace. He frowns at Teddy, who’s making a vague gesture that could mean anything from ‘please move’ to ‘fuck me up the asshole.’

“What?”

“Move,” Teddy repeats. “Scoot over, make room.”

Puzzled- so puzzled that he doesn’t notice Octavius stiffening beside him- Jed slides his backpack to the left and scoots over- just in time to allow the _stranger, hello_ to sit down at their table, between Jed and Octavius.

He’s taller than Jed, but shorter than the teachers. His hair is slicked back in a way that should be annoying but somehow manages to look good, and the navy blue dress shirt he’s wearing just screams “I’m smarter than you.” Okay, it also sort of screams “I like to suck dick in my spare time,” but obviously that’s not why it catches Jed’s attention.

The guy grins around at them and god damn it, even his teeth are perfect.

“Hi,” the guys says, in the silkiest voice Jed’s ever heard. “My name is Cassius.”

“Hey,” he says, offering his hand. “I’m Jed.”

The others introduce themselves in a circle, and Jed jumps in before anyone else has the chance.

“So, uh,” he begins, immediately regretting the decision to speak. “You new?”

“Transfer,” Cassius replies, nodding.

“Please tell me you’re here on a trip,” Octavius says in the must un-Octavius voice Jed’s ever heard. “And not for a semester.”

“Oh, calm down, Octy,” Cassius says, and Jed thinks _excuse me?_

Octavius huffs and doesn’t reply to that, and suddenly Cassius’s hair looks incredibly slimy. And his shirt really says “punch me in the face.”

The rest of the table seems to have gotten the message that something’s wrong, because Teddy jumps in to change the subject.

“Where are you from?” he asks, giving a smile that Jed knows is genuine- Teddy’s like that, always nice even when he doesn’t have to be.

“I was born in America,” Cassius says, shrugging, “but my parents originally lived in Italy. I spent a few years there in school, but Father got a job offer and so we moved back.”

“And you just happened to find out which school I was going to?” Octavius interrupts, scowling.

“Octy, stop it,” Cassius says, rubbing Octavius’s shoulder. Jed straight up sees red. “I heard this place has a good music program.”

“Sure,” Octavius says, frowning into his lunch bag.

Jed scoots a few more inches away from Cassius as he stabs his fork into his cafeteria pizza.

o0O0o

“So,” he says, pushing the door to his room open and ushering Octavius inside, “what was up with Assius?”

“Cassius,” Octavius corrects.

Jed rolls his eyes. “Whatever.” He drops his backpack onto the ground as Octavius flops onto his bed.

“He’s my, um.” Octavius clears his throat. “Ex-boyfriend.”

Jedediah stares.

“I’m allowed to have ex-boyfriends,” Octavius huffs.

“He seemed like an ass,” Jedediah says, crossing his arms.

“I saw the way you were looking at him.” Octavius shrugs. “I get it, he’s handsome. Anyway.” He shakes his head. “Doesn’t matter. As long as he isn’t looking for trouble, I won’t be, either.”

Jedediah wants to ask about their relationship _so badly._ He opens his mouth twice, almost says something, almost says the words _so why did you,_ but stops himself.

“Do you want to-” _talk about it?_ “-watch something? Do… work?”

“It’s not like you have to walk on eggshells, Jed,” Octavius chides. “I won’t go to pieces if you ask me.”

“But I don’ wanna ask you if you don’ wanna talk.”

“I’d be more than happy to talk,” Octavius assures him. “I’m glad to be rid of him, anyway.”

“Yeah?” Jed flops down on the bed and hikes both of his legs up expectantly, criss cross. Octavius sighs.

“Yes.” Octavius scoots over to allow Jed a little more room. “He’s not the kindest person.”

“With a name like _Assius,_ I ain’t surprised.”

“Cassius.”

“What _ever.”_

“Anyway.” Octavius folds his arms. “We used to go to the same school together. And I… well, I joined the cheerleading squad there as well.”

Jed snorts. “Hoo, I’d love to see pictures o’ that.”

“That’s just the thing,” Octavius explains. “Much like it is at this school, I was the only boy on the team. So, since they didn’t want to order a new uniform, I wore a girls’ uniform.”

“Only I bet it don’t look as good as the one you’ve got now,” Jed butts in, unable to stop himself. “After all, red’s sorta your color.”

Octy shrugs. “The blue and black might not have done me justice,” he agrees. “But, in any case. Cassius didn’t exactly… approve.”

“The hell’s that supposed to mean?”

“The idea of me in a skirt rather… intimidated him.” Octavius shrugs. “There was one day in particular where the team had to wear the uniform to school- as a sort of message to everyone that we’d be performing that day.” Jed doesn’t comment when Octavius crosses his legs unconsciously.

“And?” he says, gently.

“And so I wore the uniform.” Octavius shrugs. “And Cassuis, he.” He pauses. “Didn’t like it.”

“What an ass.” Jedediah huffs.

“Yes, well. Later that year, I wore a skirt- it was my mother’s; I stole it from her closet.” Octavius laughs a little at that.

“Bet every guy had his eyes on you,” Jed teases. Octy snorts.

“It didn’t, ah. Go well,” he says, quietly.

“Oh.”

“We had gym together- I had to change into shorts- when I wasn’t looking, he stole my skirt and, um.” Octavius scratches his chin. “Cut it up. Then soaked it in the toilet.”

_“Oh.”_

“He told me his friend Nonus had done it- and I believed him.” Octavius shrugs.

“Octy, that’s…” Jed can’t come up with an adjective that can describe how awful and stupid and horrible Cassius is, so he just trails off.

“Anyway, when I heard we were going to move, he got upset. And- he told me the truth.”

Octavius brings up his legs to the bed and crosses them, mimicking Jedediah.

“So,” Jed says, carefully, “you… like skirts?”

“I don’t dislike them,” Octavius says. “Obviously I don’t wear them around school.”

“Well,” Jed says, reaching for Octy’s hand and hoping that he’s not crossing some sort of boundary. “Why not?”

Octavius fixes him with a look. “I think I’ve just told you why not.”

“Well, Cassius ain’t here- I mean, he is, but not really. He’s a dick.” Damn it, this is all coming out wrong. Sort of like Jed. “I think you should, um,” he shakes his hands, trying to articulate what it is he’s trying to say. “I think you should wear them if you want.”

Octavius raises an eyebrow.

“I mean,” Jed says. “I think you look really nice, whatever you wear. And if anyone gave you a hard time about it, I’d kick their asses. And- and I know the rest of ‘em wouldn’t care- you know, Teddy, Wea, Lance, all of them.”

“That’s very kind of you, Jed,” Octavius starts.

“I’m serious, though,” Jed insists. “Cassius was an asshole, right?”

“Well, sure.” Octavius shrugs. “It’s fine that he’s here, I don’t really care. I’ve got you now, haven’t I?”

“Course you do.” Jed shrugs. “But I… like you in your uniform.”

“I did notice that,” Octavius teases, “when you were benched for a week for dropping the ball.”

“Shut up.”

“I appreciate it, though,” Octavius says, smiling shyly.

“Will you wear a skirt for me?” Jed asks, ignoring any worries he’d had about crossing lines. “Tomorrow?”

“What?”

“I wanna see- I only get to see you in your uniform, I’m curious, now.” Jed grins, waggling his eyebrows.

“You’re ridiculous,” Octavius huffs.

“I’m serious.” Jed takes his hand, now, properly. “Will you wear a skirt tomorrow?”

“Jed-”

“For me?”

Octavius sighs. Jedediah sticks out his bottom lip, fixing him with his best _pleeease_ face.

_“Pleeease?”_

“Oh my _god,_ fine.” Octavius rolls his eyes. “For you,” he agrees.

Jedediah gasps dramatically, beaming. “You’re the best boyfriend _ever.”_

Octavius snorts. “Love you, too.”

He doesn’t seem to expect Jed to say it back- come to think of it, Jed doesn’t know if he’s just joking or if he’s actually serious- but it doesn’t matter, because Octy’s changed the subject to Ms. Orsay’s class and Jed just nods and smiles, already on cloud nine.

o0O0o

Octavius waltzes into Ms. Orsay’s the next morning in a ruby red skirt that doesn’t quite reach the floor. On his feet is a pair of sandals with straps that wrap up his ankles, and Jedediah is _not_ imagining what his legs would look like shaved or what his toes would look like with nail polish on them.

Octy sits down and pulls out his books, fixing Jed with a look that says _happy, now?_

Jed just grins back.

o0O0o

In the end, Jed doesn’t know whether Lunch ends horribly or _amazingly._

 “Octy,” Cassius greets, and wow, how did Jed not notice how annoying this guy was from the start? “Nice dress.”

It’s not a compliment, and somehow everyone knows that. Teddy in particular, Jed sees, finally gets the vibe that something’s wrong about Cassius.

“It’s not a dress,” Octavius says, sitting down and not facing Cassius. “It’s a skirt.”

“Your mother’s skirt, right?” Cassius snorts.

“Yes,” Octavius huffs. “She was nice enough to lend it to me.”

Cassius laughs, a harsh, mean sound that makes Jed’s jaw clench and his shoulders tense. From across the table, Lance’s smile falls off his face.

“Maybe you should be nice enough to give it back,” Cassius says. Octavius doesn’t say anything, just pulls out a sandwich from his paper bag. “Oh, come on, Octy,” Cassius says, smiling. “You know you look ridiculous.”

Octavius grits his teeth.

“I think he looks fine,” Jed butts in, leaning forward.

“Yes,” Sacagawea adds, seeming to understand exactly what’s going on. Good old Wea. “He does. It suits him.”

“All right, all right.” Cassius takes his half empty lunch tray and stands, then winks at Octavius. _“See you in gym, Octy.”_

And that’s it. That’s all Jed can take.

o0O0o

“You didn’t have to do that,” Octavius says, from the back of Mr. Kahmunrah’s classroom, where they’re both serving detention.

“Course I did,” Jed says, shrugging. The room’s abuzz with chatter from all the other kids- Cassius is sitting in the front, reading quietly.

“This was a bad idea.” Octavius picks at the skirt, uncomfortably. “I should have brought a pair of jeans or something-”

“It was a fine idea.” Jed shakes his head, then winces as his nose protests the movement. He touches it gently, picks off a few flakes of dried blood. “Cassius’s just a dick.”

“But I’ve gotten you in detention.”

“Not like I’ve never been here before.” Jed shrugs. “Besides, you’re here with me, too.”

“That’s not really a good thing.”

“Hey, lighten up. Detention’s not so bad, once you get used to it.”

“Jed, I’m… not going to wear something like this again,” Octavius says quietly.

“Why not?”

“Because!” Octavius leans back in his chair. “Because of what happened last time and because of what happened this time.”

“Well, do you like it?”

“I feel stupid.”

“But do you like it?”

“Jed-”

“Because I like it-”

“Jedediah, _stop it!”_

It’s not loud enough to make the rest of the room quiet down and pay them attention, but it’s loud enough that Jed is stunned into silence. He’s crossed a line, now, he knows it- shit, shit, he fucked up, he fucked up so bad, what the hell is he going to-

“Sorry,” Octavius says, but Jed barely hears him. “I’m just going to- um.”

Octavius’s seat scoots backwards with a horrible _squawk,_ and Octy takes his stuff and just _leaves._ Sits in the second row.

Jed buries his head in his hands, rubs his thumb over his ring, and wonders how the hell he’s going to fix this.

o0O0o

Octy doesn’t talk to him for the rest of the week.

They sit apart from each other in Ms. Orsay’s, Jedediah eats lunch in the back of Mr. Kahmunrah’s classroom and no one comes to see him. Octy doesn’t invite him over, he doesn’t invite Octy over. The only texts he gets are from his mother, asking if he wants a ride home from school.

Octy always seems to leave early from cheerleading practice, because Jed can never catch him at the end of football practice. They’ve got another game soon, timed perfectly with the arrival of March and (hopefully) the reappearance of spring. So he’s got practice nearly every day.

He ignores all the work he’s been given and speaks less and less in class. His teachers don’t seem to care- Mr. Ahkmenrah doesn’t call on him quite as often anymore, but he seems to be the only exception. He knows it’s going to take a lot of work to bring his grades back up but he can’t think of that now, he just has to focus on here and now.

He doesn’t take off his necklace.

o0O0o

The bus ride to the game isn’t terrible, per se. But both the cheer team and the football team share the same bus, and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out who Jed’s _not_ sitting next to.

Who he is sitting next to, however, is another matter.

An exchange student from… somewhere (Jed never really bothered to ask), Attila was the sort of type who’d share his lunch money with his friends but bully it out of people he didn’t like. Coach Daley had allowed him on the team only because he had about forty pounds on everyone else- especially Jed. But luckily, everyone on the team seemed to be immune to Attila’s _wrath,_ as Jed called it.

Apparently, except now.

And it’s worse than having his lights punched out- of course Attila can’t do anything like that here, not on a bus in front of the coach, not at a game where he’s likely to get suspended from playing. So he settles for giving Jed the silent treatment.

Yeah, yeah, it’s immature. But it sucks like hell. Especially when he tries to get the whole “is that the wind” part- because the rest of the team catches on, thinks it’s hilarious, and then _ignores him too._

Seriously, what the hell did Jed ever do?

o0O0o

_A few days earlier_

He hadn’t meant to yell at Jed- it had just been a sort of instinctual thing.

Octavius glances over his shoulder discreetly- Jed’s head is in his hands. Perfect. Octavius turns back to the front, hugging himself. Now he’s done it. He’s dressed like an idiot, in detention for maybe the first time in his life, and he’s just yelled at his boyfriend. His boyfriend who is also his best friend. His boyfriend who had convinced him to wear something like this to school.

Octavius rubs his eyes quietly, making a note to dash out as quickly as possible, so as not to face him.

“Hey,” comes a deep accented voice from his left, and he turns to see that exchange student looking at him- looking at him in a very concerned manner.

“Hey, Attila,” he says, and _wow,_ is his voice really that dry?

“You are crying,” Attila says, frowning. “Why?”

“I’m fine, I’m… fine.” He shakes his head, rubbing at his eyes again. “It’s nothing.”

“It is something,” Attila insists. “You are crying, why?”

“Look, it’s just.” Octavius sighs. He tries to tell the condensed version of everything that’s happened, starting with his old school and ending with detention. He crosses his legs unconsciously, tugs the skirt tight around them. Attila nods and makes _mmhmm_ sounds every so often- so he must understand most of it.

“You want to be a…” He searches for the word for a moment. “A skirt boy?”

“No, no, I just- keep your voice down-” Which, of course, is a ridiculous request, as the room’s full of chatter and other such noises. Octavius sighs. “Jed talked me into it, I never should have listened.”

“So it is Jedediah’s fault you are crying?” Attila pieces together, and because Jed doesn’t want to talk any more about it (and maybe a little because he’s still kind of angry at Jed), he just goes with it.

“Yeah,” he says, crossing his arms and slumping in the chair. “Jed’s fault.”

Attila doesn’t even reply to that, just goes back to reading his book in монгол.

o0O0o

So, yeah, Jed’s got no idea why Attila apparently hates him, now.

o0O0o

The game goes by all right- they’re in the lead, fall back (because Jed drops the ball _again),_ but then pick up again in the beginning of the second half and carry their lead to the end.

Jed doesn’t notice the cheer team- no matter how bright the sun might shine on their bright red uniforms- and so he doesn’t notice the set of legs hidden behind bright red pants swirling around the skirts.

“Good job, team,” Daley says, as they regroup to celebrate. “Very good- make sure you’ve got everything back in your bags; be back on the bus in forty minutes, that’s _forty minutes_ …”

Jed tunes him out.

He goes to get his bag from the bleachers when he hears voices- specifically Ivan’s and Al’s- coming closer. They’re both on the team- Ivan never passes to Jed, not even if Jed’s in the perfect position, and he’s pretty sure Al sells all of their strategies to the opposite teams. Jed grits his teeth and waits for it.

“Hey, Jed-head,” Al says, leaning against the bleachers as Jed bends to pick up his bang.

“We saw your boyfriend the other day,” Ivan adds, and it’s clear that they’ve rehearsed this conversation. Jed braces himself.

“Better start calling him toga-boy, huh?” Al snickers. “Always knew he was a fruit, never thought he’d actually admit to it.”

“To what?” Jed says, taking the bait without even blinking.

“To being a girl,” Ivan sneers.

“Come on.” Al punches his shoulder. It hurts, but Jed’s clearly not supposed to let that show. “We all know you go for the chicks around here, yeah? Figures he’s a girl at heart, no wonder you went for him.”

Jed slings the bag over his shoulder, trying to ignore them. Ivan jogs in front of him, stops him in his tracks.

“Stop,” Ivan says.

“Get outta my way.”

“Nah, Jed-head, you misunderstand.” Al strides to his side, rubs his shoulder. “Ditch the toga-boy.”

“What?”

“Ditch,” Ivan repeats, folding his arms, “skirt-boy.”

“Hey, he made progress today,” Al says, as if Jed isn’t even there. “Did you see him? Pants and everything.”

“He _what?”_

“But.” Al pats his head. “The point still stands, Jed-head. You’re making the team look bad.”

“Maybe the team wouldn’t look so bad if you didn’t sell us out!”

“You little-”

Jed swings to the side and punches Al in the jaw.

They’re two on one, and Ivan’s got maybe ten pounds up on Jed, so he only manages to land a couple more blows before Ivan grabs his arms and holds them behind his back, leaving him wide open.

“You’re a girl, just like him,” Al spits, hair askew. His chin’s gonna hold a bruise for a week, and really, that makes it all worth it.

“The hell’s wrong with you?” Jed says- he almost shouts, but Ivan twists his arm in a clear warning.

“This ain’t about us, Jed-head, it’s about you.” Al aims a kick to his chest and he slumps forward, winded.

“Go fuck yourself,” he growls, suddenly glad Ivan’t holding his arms- he’d probably fall over otherwise.

“Come on, Jed-head.” Al pats his cheek and Jed resists the urge to spit in his face. “Hey, he already hates you.”

“The hell are you talking about?”

“Don’t think you’re the only one in detention.”

Ivan. Of course.

Al’s too smart to land himself in detention, but Ivan isn’t. And of course, he must have sat right behind them- or beside them- or something.

“That ain’t none of your business.” He glares at Al, wondering how much trouble he’d get in if he actually did spit.

“Wouldn’t take much. Hey, he might want it to be over already.” Al shrugs. “Who knows? Women, you know? Never can make up their minds.”

“Shut up about Octy.”

“Why? Because you know I’m right?”

“No, because he’s my _boyfriend.”_ Jed looks Al straight in the eyes. “Because he can wear a damn skirt if he wants to, because what the hell’s that got anything to do with you, and because-” He breaks off, pretending to look somewhere over Al’s shoulder. Al takes the bait and looks, too.

Jed spits.

Ivan puts both hands on his arm and twists them different directions and Jed can’t help it, he lets out a shout and falls to the ground because an Indian Arm Burn is _not fair._

Ivan drops him, and he and Al both sprint away- as if there’s anything on the field that could hide them from plain sight. The only reason no one’s noticed, Jed thinks, is that the rest of the team’s probably still celebrating the win outside with the free Gatorade.

He picks up his bag again and hikes it over his shoulder, getting ready to follow them, already thinking of where the band-aids in his bathroom are, when-

“Jed?”

He drops his bag.

From behind the bleachers, still halfway shrouded in shadow, comes-

“Octy,” he says, stupidly. “I… I thought you were over with-”

“I was getting my stuff when I heard you coming,” Octavius says, shrugging. “Look, just- just.” Octavius steals a glance at the doors leading into the locker rooms.

“Octy?”

“Come with me.”

He drags Jed back past the bleachers and into the locker rooms- the ones for their team, that is. And because their team’s won, they’re empty.

Good thing, too, because there’s no one around to see- or hear- as he shoves Jed onto the nearest locker and kisses him soundly. The locker door slams shutewith a bang, rattling the whole set of lockers around them. Underneath his hands, Jed shudders.

He slides a hand under Jed’s jersey and grabs blindly. He’s still sweaty from the game and Octavius’s hands have no trouble slipping up and down his skin.

Jed’s hands, on the other hand, have no idea what they’re doing. They grab at Octavius’s jacket, tugging him closer still.

They break apart with a gasp, Jed’s head _thumps_ back onto the locker and Octavius hovers over him, their noses brushing.

“I.. I…” Jed pants, staring hopelessly up at him.

“You’re such an idiot,” Octavius says, laughing breathlessly. When Jed doesn’t say anything, he panics. “Are you okay with this?”

“Yeah,” Jed says, “but I don’t understand. Weren’t you mad at me?”

“A little.” Octavius shrugs.

“So why-”

“Shut up.”

He slams Jed back into the locker and kisses him again, this time shoving his leg up between Jed’s. Jed groans underneath him, eyes squeezing shut. Octavius tugs his bottom lip between his teeth, pulls gently, and is met with another guttural moan from Jed.

He shoves his knee up harder, and Jed jerks underneath him, sliding a few inches down the locker. Octavius dives for his neck, nips with his teeth, and sucks hard. Jed grits his teeth and hisses, still gripping Octavius’s jacket.

He pulls off and licks the bruise he’s left, then fastens his lips down again next to it, humming softly.

“Fuck, Octy,” Jed pants underneath him, and Octavius runs a hand from his chest to his back, slides it down a bit further until he finds the waistband of Jed’s football shorts. He runs his fingers around the rim until he reaches the front- he cups Jed through the skin tight shorts and-

“Oh, _fuck!”_ Jed grunts, and slides about a foot down on the locker, grabbing Octavius around the torso. They both fall awkwardly onto the locker room floor, Octavius landing on top of Jed.

“You okay?” he asks, looking Jed over. Jed’s gone as red as his uniform, won’t even meet his eye.

“Fine,” Jed says, shaking his head. “Yeah, I’m fine, don’t worry.” He clears his throat and tries to cross his legs.

It isn’t until Octavius sits back on his feet and actually looks at Jedediah that he realizes exactly what’s happened. Jed’s red football shorts are… well. Soiled is probably the best adjective to describe it.

“You-”

 _“Yes.”_ Jed’s still bright red, arms crossed now. “Yes, all right, shut up.”

“I think it’s adorable.”

Outside the locker room, he hears a faint shout, followed up immediately by a hearty chorus of cheers.

“Guess we’ve got to get on the bus.”

“Are you- are you _serious,”_ Jed says, trying to stand and failing miserably. He slumps back down on the ground, legs apparently not quite up to the task of standing just yet.

“Yeah?” Octavius frowns.

“I can’t go out there like this!” Jed gestures down between his legs, where it’s painfully obvious what they’ve just done.

“So tie a jacket around you or something.”

“I ain’t got a jacket!”

Octavius huffs, crossing his arms. He has to admit, he does like the idea of Jed running around with come-stained football shorts, but _oh god this is not the time._

He unfastens the button on his pants and slides the zip down, then begins to shimmy the pants off his legs.

“Octy, what the hell are you-”

He throws the pants at Jed. “Use mine.”

Jed stares at him.

“I, uh. Brought my old outfit,” Octavius admits, reaching for his bag. He pulls out the old red pleated skirt, because of course he couldn’t bear to leave it behind. It’s just so… red.

Jed lights up like a million suns, the way he always does when he’s happy.

“You can put your shorts in my bag,” Octavius says, sliding the bag across the floor as he steps into the skirt.

“You,” Jedediah says, squeezing off his football shorts, “are the best boyfriend. In the entire fuckin’ world, you know that?”

“I might.”

They come out of the locker room smelling like sweat and other things- so, more or less the same way they’d smell from coming out a locker room any other day- and head for the bus, hand in hand.

o0O0o

The football team is all too exhausted to talk on the bus ride home, as are the cheerleaders. There’s a static sort of roar as the bus rolls along towards home, making it had for Jed to hear anyone but the person directly next to him.

Luckily, that person happens to be Octavius.

They’re about a minute onto the freeway before Jedediah actually musters up the courage to speak.

“So, um,” he says, and Octavius looks away from the window at him.

“Yes?” Octavius’s eyes are full of something- mirth, it might be. “What?”

Jed raises an eyebrow. “You know what.”

“I know you came in your pants after about fifteen seconds of-”

_“Shhhh!”_

“Oh, come on, Jed, no one can hear us.” Octavius rolls his eyes.

“Whatever.” He’s burning red now- which is not fantastic, because they’re on a bus full of people and they’ve still got at least an hour left to go and he does _not_ want to be overheated.

Octavius sighs and puts a hand on his leg.

Jed’s mind slips into overdrive, repeating a mantra of _oh god please not now Octy what the hell are you doing are you sERIOUS_ , but Octavius just finds his hand and grabs it.

“Jed,” he says, voice barely audible over the din of the bus as it roars over the freeway.

Jed squeezes his hand back.

“I’m sorry,” Octavius says, looking at his lap. “For being- you were just trying to help.” He shakes his head.

“I shouldn’a pushed you,” Jed says, shrugging. “I mean, I saw you were uncomfortable, but I jus’ thought if I gave you a push, then maybe you’d-”

“You were right.” Octavius shakes his head again, a little more vigorously. “If Cassius hadn’t shown up, everything would have been fine.”

“Cassi- oh, right.”

“Anyway.” Octavius shrugs. “I don’t really care what he thinks anymore.”

“Yeah?” Jed grins. “An’ why’s that?”

“Cause I’ve got you.”

There are only two seats for every side of the bus, so there’s not a whole lot of room- but Octavius still manages to lean down so his head is resting in Jed’s lap-

And again, the mantra starts up again because _is Octy going to suck his dick what the fuck what the fuck what the fucK-_

But Octavius just looks up at him, still smiling. Jed smiles back, and by the look on Octy’s face, that mantra’s as good as printed on his face. He can damn well feel his ears turn red.

“Shut up,” he mutters. Octavius giggles, honest to god _giggles._

“I brought a headphone splitter,” he says, reaching under their seats and pulling out his iPod. He hands it to Jed. “Pick something.”

They listen to Rod Stewart sing covers of old songs the entire way back.

o0O0o

Of course they go to prom together.

There isn’t even a spot of drama- no one asks either of them out beforehand, Cassius doesn’t say a word about it, they buy their tickets and submit the same song suggestions to the list, they get matching outfits (Jed borrows his dad’s old suit and Octy settles for a suit jacket and a blue skirt that falls to his feet in waves).

Jed lives closer to the school, so they meet there before going.

“Hello, Octavius,” Jed’s mother greets, as Octy shows up five minutes before they agreed. Of course he does.

“Hi, Ms. Smith,” he says, taking her hand and shaking it. Jed rolls his eyes.

“Hey Octy,” he says, poking his head out of the bathroom. “Make yourself at home, there’s some leftover cake by the fridge- I’ve just got to fix my hair up.”

“Yeah, you haven’t quite reached the ‘dead cat’ look yet,” Octy calls after him, then snorts.

Jed turns back to the mirror and is about to reach into the drawer for that thing of _defining whip_ his mother uses when she wants to look nice for company when he hears his father’s voice.

Ah, shit. He’d forgotten dad was home.

“Hi, Mr. Smith,” he hears Octy say, and it dawns on him that his dad’s never actually met Octy before.

“Hello…” his dad says, trailing off. Jed can just imagine him looking Octy up and down, judging.

“Octavius,” Octy says, all smiles.

“Right. You’re.”

“His date. Boyfriend.” Octavius sounds so sure of himself, Jed can’t help but smile.

“Yeah.”

“He said there was cake?”

“Yes- it was the cat’s birthday yesterday. He wanted to, ah, celebrate.”

Jed’s ears burn.

_“Really.”_

“Yes, really. He loves that thing.”

The bathroom door pushes open apparently of its own accord, and Jed looks down to see Henry, looking up at him expectantly.

“What do you want?” he asks her, frowning. “I’m busy.”

She rubs her head against the bathroom wall and snakes herself between his feet, purring.

“I don’t have food here. I’m not even on the toilet- what are you _doing here-”_

“She’s pretty cute,” he hears Octavius say, along with the sound of a plate and a fork clanging together.

“So,” his father says, slowly. “How long have you and him been…”

“Together?” Octavius finishes for him. “Since, uh, November. I think. It might have been September?”

Yeah, come to think of it, it has been a while. Since Christmas, at least. And since Thanksgiving. Crap, Jed realizes, they’ve been together for almost the whole school year. He’s _never_ been with anyone this long before.

“Huh. That’s nice.”

What?

“Yeah, it is,” Octy says.

“So what do you like to, uh, do? Jed’s on the football team.”

“Oh, I know. I’m on the cheerleading squad, we go to games together.”

“Huh. And you like that?”

“Oh, yeah. It’s hard, we’ve got practice almost every day. But it’s worth it.”

“Right. So. Do you. Do you share classes?”

“I’m in his English class, first period, but nothing after that. We eat lunch together, though.”

“Good.”

They seem to have run out of topics. An Awkward Silence descends over them, and Jed decides to put them out of their misery.

“There we go,” he says, loudly coming out of the bathroom. “All done.”

“You look nice,” his father says, proudly. “All dolled up like that.”

“There’s the dead cat,” Octavius coos. “I missed it.”

“My hair does not look like a dead cat.”

“It does, a little.”

_“Mom.”_

o0O0o

The dance is perfect.

o0O0o

_It’s been a year, now._

Jedediah sits in the grass, staring blankly at the block of marble in front of him. He doesn’t know what to say. It’s been a year, now, to the day. It should feel different, somehow, but it doesn’t. It feels like every other night he’s spent in front of this damn thing.

Something shuffles in the grass next to him and he turns to see-

“Teddy,” he says, quietly. His friend smiles sadly, nodding.

“I knew you’d be here.”

“Yeah?”

A moment passes. And then-

“He’d be proud of you.”

Jedediah doesn’t say anything to that.

“Jed.”

Still nothing. He knows what Teddy’s going to say and he doesn’t want to listen. He’s heard it before- from his friends, from his parents, from his friends’ parents- and he doesn’t care.

He shakes his head.

“Jed, I know you don’t think-”

“I’m not gonna forget about him,” Jedediah says, voice thick. “I’m not, Teddy.”

“You don’t have to forget,” Teddy says quietly. He scoots closer, puts a hand on Jedediah’s shoulder. “But sooner or later you’re going to have to move on.”

“I ain’t moving on, Teddy.”

“He’d have wanted you to.”

He knows Teddy’s expecting him to burst out with  _to hell with what he would have wanted; I’ll never know what he would have wanted because he ain’t here,_ but he doesn’t. Jed stares at the marble stone sat in the grass, tucks his knees up to his chest, wraps his arms around them. The ring digs into his finger, begins to rub the skin raw. The necklace beats against his chest silently.

“I know,” he says.

o0O0o

Octavius is late.

Jedediah taps his foot on the floor, irritated. His Octy’s never late. What’s going on?

He looks at the clock- one minute until the late bell; it’s first period, he thinks. Maybe Octy just slept in. Yeah, that’s it. Any minute, Octy’s gonna come running in all red faced and out of breath and pleading to Ms. Orsay not to mark him late because he’s never been late before and it’ll show on his permanent record and please it won’t happen again-

The bell rings.

Jedediah raps his fingertips over the table. The seat next to him is empty, and it’s never been empty before. Octy’s never missed a single class, not one. Even if he had to come armed with a box of tissues and a bottle of DayQuil, he’s always been there.

What the hell’s going on?

By the time five minutes have ticked by, he’s lost track of the lesson. Granted, as it’s first period, most of the class has as well. Ms. Orsay tries valiantly, but there’s nothing that’ll bring him back to the present- nor the rest of the class, really. All the seniors are gone; they all graduated a week ago, the ceremony’s tonight. Plus, since it’s the first week of June, nearly everyone’s more interested in the sunshine and the summer breezes than they are about English.

And even Ms. Orsay seems off. She gives the empty seat next to him a glance every so often, then looks away- and he can almost see some emotion in her face each time, but he can’t quite make it out.

When the announcements tick on and there’s nothing but static for a good five seconds instead of the national anthem, Jedediah knows something is wrong.

Something is  _catastrophically_ wrong.

 _“Jedediah Smith, please come to the Main Office,”_ the voice says, and Jedediah has never run faster in his life.

He tears out of the classroom, abandoning his bag, and sprints down the hallway. He ignores the buzz that billows in his absence, instead making a beeline for the main office. The hall leading to the double doors has never seemed longer, and it’s like he’s stuck in a nightmare, unable to gain speed even though his legs are spinning and his feet are pounding into the ground again and again and again-

He opens the door and looks.

Octavius’s parents look back.

He looks between the two of them helplessly, looks under their legs but sees no trace of-

“Octy?” he says, and his voice is so little and so broken.

“Octavius,” Octavius’s mother says, “was walking to school this morning.” Something cold and sharp slams through his chest. “He was-” She stops, collects herself. Octavius’s father pats her on the back, rubs her shoulder. She takes a breath, lets it out, looks at him. “He was hit by a truck.”

Jedediah’s knees turn to rubber. He sways on the spot, grabs onto the nearest chair.

“He’s in the hospital right now,” Octavius’s dad says, taking over. Octavius’s mom holds onto his arm, clenching her eyes shut. “He’ll go in for surgery in a few hours, but. He asked for you.”

“He’s okay?” Jedediah croaks.

Octavius’s dad looks first at the floor and then at him. “He’s sustained a lot of injuries; surgery is his only chance.”

“But it’ll work, won’t it?” he asks, looking between the two of them.

Neither of them answer.

o0O0o

“Two minutes,” a voice says, and he’s led through the doors.

“Octy,” he says, seeing Octavius from across the room. He falls into the chair beside his bed, eyes racing back and forth, back and forth, over his body. There are bandages everywhere; Jed’s no medical man, but he knows that this is  _bad._  Jed finds his hand- one of the only parts of him that looks to have gotten away unscathed- and covers it with both of his own. Octavius’s fingers curl up around his hand, slowly but surely.

“Hey,” says a tiny, tiny voice.

One of Octavius’s eyes is covered with a square bandage, so he finds the other.

“Hey,” he says back, voice cracked and broken but not nearly as small as Octy’s.

“You came.” Octavius gazes up at him as if he’s the only light left in the world.

“Course I came.” Jedediah squeezes his hand. “What’re you doin’ in here, Octy?”

Octavius stares at him in confusion, unable to construct a response. Maybe he has a concussion, Jed thinks- Octy always has to have the last word.

“I’m supposed to be the one lyin’ in the hospital bed,” he says, blinking back something that’s making it hard for him to focus his eyes. “An’ you’re the one who’s supposed to tell me off for bein’ dumb.”

“Jed-”

“You’re gonna be okay,” Jedediah says, shaking his head. “I promise- you’re gonna go in and those people are gonna fix you up, and you’ll be good as new.”

“Jedediah.”

“You an’ I are gonna go back to class an’ you’re gonna help me, all right? I ain’t gonna pass Ms. Orsay’s without you, I-”

“Jed, listen to me.”

And Octavius is smiling and no that’s not right why is he smiling stop it Octy stop it stop it _stop it-_

_“Jed.”_

Jedediah closes his mouth. He can taste the salt of his tears on his lips, licks it away. He realizes his hands are shaking as they hold Octavius’s. Octy’s thumb rubs over his own, gently, surely- rubs over the ring. Jedediah blinks, realizes he’s got to say something, he’s got to say it _now_ or else he might never get the chance to-

“Time’s up,” the voice says from the doorway. His hands tighten, knuckles turning a sickly green.

“You stay out of trouble,” Octavius whispers, not taking his eyes off of Jedediah. “Promise me, yeah?”

“I-”

“Promise me you’ll keep out of trouble, Jed.”

“I promise,” Jedediah says, nodding. He blinks, and tears splatter onto Octavius’s face. “I promise. Octy, I-”

He’s pushed away by the Voice from the door, and a set of hands land on his shoulders and they smell like Octavius’s house and will he ever smell that again and Octavius is being wheeled away and out the door and he can do nothing but watch and oh god he’d never said it-

The doors close, and Octavius whispers out of sight.

o0O0o

Octy’s late.

Jed taps his foot on the carpet floor, grumbling under his breath. He raps his pen down over and over and over on his books, leaving tiny dents with each hit. It’s not as if he has to pay for it- the school’s got a shitty budget so they’re stuck with these old-ass books that have ripped pages and dicks drawn on the side and-

The bell rings, and he remembers.

Octavius is never late. Every once in a while, he’ll slip in seconds before the bell rings and mutter something about the lights being slow or his alarm not working, but he always gets here before the bell. But Jedediah looks up at the clock and knows, stomach sinking, that Octavius is never coming through that door.

He drops his pen on the floor but doesn’t bother picking it up, hands shaking too much to even grasp at it. He folds his arms on the table and buries his head.

He’s supposed to be ready, now. They’d let him take a whole week off of school; he’s supposed to be ready. He’s supposed to look up at the board and copy down the assignment and ignore the fact that the chair to his right is empty, he’s supposed to walk home alone and not think about Octy’s voice and how he’s never going to hear it again, not ever. He’s supposed to make it through the last week of school, supposed to finish what he started that September-

He doesn’t realize he’s crying until something in the bottom of his stomach _pulls_ and he can’t breathe and he sucks in air down his throat and into his lungs and coughs it right back up and-

“Jed.”

He shakes his head vigorously, sitting up. “I’m fine.”

“Jed, you don’t have to be here.”

The rest of the classroom sits in uncomfortable silence, just watching as he tears himself to pieces. Ms. Orsay hovers above him.

“Fine,” he repeats. “I’m fine.” His stomach twinges again, a short tug that leaves him breathless and gasping, like he’s underwater but he can breathe but his lungs don’t know that and the water’s filling him up but no matter how much he struggles the air is still there, the air is still there, the air won’t leave-

“I’m going to call your mother, all right?”

He nods weakly.

His mum comes by to pick him up ten minutes later, and he doesn’t say anything as she drives him through the streets and into the driveway. He marches up to his room, ignores her offers for food, and lies on his bed, staring at the crack in his ceiling.

He puts Octy’s cell on silent and calls it a dozen times, commits the voicemail message to memory.

_This is Octavius, I can’t answer the phone right now. Please leave a message and I’ll get back to you as soon as I c- Jed, put that down you’re scaring the cat-_

“Hi.”

The nothing blasts through the speaker and into his ear. He ignores it.

“It’s, um. It’s me.”

He waits. Any second, now, any second. Octy’s voice is going to come through the speaker. He listens as hard as he can for the slightest shred of sound.

“I miss you.”

Cmon, Octy, pick up.

“Come back.”

Any second.

“I miss you so much, boi, you’ve got no idea.”

_Please_

“Octy-”

It’s his name that does it. Jed sucks in a breath, clenches his eyes shut. The line’s as dead as it will ever be, full of nothing but static. There’s no one on the other end of the line because-

“I’m sorry I never told you.” He holds the phone to his ear, as if it’ll bring Octy closer. “I wanted to, I swear, I guess I just… forgot. I dunno.” He sniffs. “Dunno if I would have told you, even if I’d remembered. I do, I mean. I do. I do. I do.”

He hates this.

“I miss you,” he says again, because he can’t stop thinking it. “I miss you.”

The line says nothing, and it never will.

“I’m sorry.” He slides his eyes shut. “Goodbye, Octy.”

He presses the _end call_ button and lets the phone drop to the floor.

o0O0o

There’s not much his teachers can do- they excuse him for about half of the assignments he misses in the last two weeks of school, but they can’t legally give him credit for things he doesn’t do. So his junior year grades dip a little, but he still manages to pass all of his classes- even English (though he suspects Ms. Orsay might have altered a few of his grades out of pity.)

He hates her.

For the first few weeks of summer, his phone never shuts up. The whole group- Sac, Teddy, Lance, Custer, and Nicky- want to know how he’s doing, if he wants to meet up, if he needs anything. Coach Daley even calls him one time and leaves a three minute voicemail asking if he wants help. He ignores them, and by the third week, he doesn’t hear so much as a text.

He gets a job bagging groceries at the local supermarket and hates every minute of it. He spends almost every penny on flowers for Octy, spends every Saturday sitting by the headstone, reading. He finishes _The Great Gatsby_ againby the second week of summer and moves on to _The Things They Carried,_ then _The Catcher in the Rye,_ then back to _The Great Gatsby._

Sometimes he reads it aloud, just like Octy used to.

But mostly, he doesn’t.

o0O0o

One Tuesday, he breaks a carton of eggs. The cashier is apologetic but not upset. The customer doesn’t say anything, but he can tell she’s more than a little angry.

He comes home and doesn’t talk to anyone for an hour, just pulls out the carton of ice cream and scoops himself out a bowl, because he needs it. He retreats into his room and buries himself in Netflix, trying to ignore the world around him.

“Hey, you left an empty milk carton in the sink,” his dad greets him, when he’s halfway through the third season of _My Little Pony._ He groans and makes to get up off the bed.

“Ugh, fine,” he says, because he really really doesn’t want an argument right now.

“No, no, that’s all right,” his dad says, shrugging. “I’ll take care of it. You can sit on your ass and stuff sugar into your mouth. Go back to watching girl shows.”

He shuts the door with a smug smile, leaving Jedediah alone.

Jed wants to break his computer. He wants to throw the bowl of ice cream at his door and watch the porcelain shatter. He wants to punch through his window. He wants to-

He takes his pillow, buries his face into it, and screams as loudly as he can.

He’s pathetic. Here he is, screaming into a fucking pillow. He can’t watch his stupid show now, he can’t eat his ice cream. He can’t talk to his father, he can’t rant to his mother, he can’t rant to Octy-

He screams again, until his head begins to go numb.

It’s the doctor’s fault. Octy was supposed to go in and come out good as new, she was supposed to _fix him._ He wants to find that stupid doctor and punch her in her stupid face, he wants to break her hands and ruin her career, make her know how it feels to have something she loves brutally ripped away from her-

He wants the truck driver (who had paid in full for the funeral and the headstone) to walk to work one day and accidentally walk under a bus. No, he wants the truck driver’s _husband_ to walk under a bus. No. No, he wants the truck driver to drive the bus that her husband walks under. Then she’ll know.

He wants the whole world to just _shut up_ for _five fucking seconds._

o0O0o

His mum calls the doctor and lets Jed talk to her. He spends twenty minutes listening to her explain the details; exactly what they’d had to do and why they hadn’t been able to save him. He listens to her tell him, in the most sickeningly sympathetic voice he’s ever heard, that she was very sorry and that she’s dealt with this sort of thing before and would he like a recommended therapist?

He hangs up without thanking her.

o0O0o

When September comes again, he goes back.

He spends a week in his chosen classes before meeting with his counselor and swapping into two AP classes, arranging for a tutor, and setting up volunteer hour opportunities.

o0O0o

In September, as he walks home with his newest textbook under his arm, he realizes that if he’d offered Octy a ride to school that morning, he’d still be alive.

He spends the rest of the walk thinking _what if._

 _What if_ he’d come over the night before and stayed over?

 _What if_ Jedediah had gotten up early and convinced him to skip school?

 _What if_ he’d chosen a different route that day?

 _What if_ the truck driver had chosen a different route?

 _What if_ the truck driver’s parents had never met?

 _What if_ there had been a different doctor?

 _What if_ Jed had walked to Octy’s instead?

 _What if_ Jed had been hit by the truck?

With every step he takes, his mind explodes another magnitude higher in thought. Out of all the possibilities, out of all the millions and trillions of possibilities for that day, why had the universe chosen this one?

Why couldn’t it have chosen another one? _Any_ other one? Why couldn’t Jed have been the one under the truck instead? Would the universe have been satisfied, then?

Impossibly, he thinks-

_If I got by a car today, would it be a fair trade?_

He makes it to his house without incident and never thinks of _what-if’s_ again.

o0O0o

In February, he quits the football team “to focus on my studies.”

He spends the extra hours in his schedule hidden away in the graveyard, frost covering the grass, trees barren and dead, bent over his book. His eyes gloss over the words without reading them, snap to the pictures and diagrams, trying to understand what they mean.

He looks at the gravestone and imagines the work it must have taken to make. He imagines the kid stuck with the summer job, digging up this grave. He remembers the funeral, remembers how the church was decorated with red ribbons and a professionally framed photo of Octy. He remembers the stupid coffin and the beautiful wood and the flowers and shit, how much did it all cost?

He thinks about his mother, and about how he’s barely spoken to her since last June. He thinks about his father, and about how hard he works. He thinks about all the dinners he’s spent silent, about all the time he’s wasted alone in his room.

He’s been a horrible son.

Should he even bother trying to fix anything? He’s off the football team, his ninth, tenth, and eleventh grade marks are terrible, he hasn’t spoken to his friends in days- he spends most lunches alone in the back of the library, tucked in the soundproof practice rooms, or in the back of Mr. Ahkmenrah’s classroom- and he’s been terrible to his parents.

_Promise me you’ll keep out of trouble, Jed._

o0O0o

He sets his tray down next to Lancelot’s the next day and watches as the whole group goes silent and stares at him.

Wordlessly, he takes his plastic fork and shoves his state-issued mac and cheese around on his tray before stuffing a forkful into his mouth. None of them say a word, but on Lancelot’s other side, Custer breaks the silence by rummaging around in his bag and pulling out a PB&J sandwich. The rest of the table relaxes, accepting the fact that Jed’s back with them.

On his other side, Teddy smiles shyly and puts a hand on his arm.

And he leans into the touch, without control. It’s been _so long_ since he’s touched anyone- his parents, his friends, Octy- that he’s forgotten how much he craves simple human contact. Teddy seems to realize this, because before Jed knows what’s happening, he’s being pulled into a hug. And then Lancelot’s hugging him, too, and that’s Sac walking up behind him, and-

And he smiles.

o0O0o

In April, he sits through his two AP tests.

Two months later, he graduates with flying colors.

He walks down the aisle, gives a nod to each of his teachers, and sits down next to the rest of his class. The band plays as they march off the stage and across the field.

He holds the diploma and imagines it burning the skin off his hands.

That night is spent crouched in the middle of the graveyard.

“I did it,” he says, setting the diploma down in front of the headstone. “I made it, Octy, just like you told me to. Just like you always wanted.”

The headstone doesn’t say anything.

“Okay, so they ain’t the best grades in the business,” he continues, shrugging. “But I passed.”

Above him, a robin lands on a branch, ruffles its feathers. Jedediah watches the gravestone for a second before brightening, remembering.

“An’ hey, I brought you a surprise.” He fishes around in his bag until he pulls out the letter. He flips up the broken seal, extracts the piece of paper. “Best liberal arts college in the state- don’t ask me how, I got no clue. But they liked my portfolio. An’ I’ve got a scholarship.” He sets the letter in his lap.

A breeze trickles through the headstones, swirls across the grass.

o0O0o

It’s been a year, now.

They sit in front of the grave together, they watch the marble. If Jedediah squints hard enough, he can almost make out a reflection of the stars on the stone. He remembers studying for an astronomy quiz, remembers studying for so many other things, remembers-

 _remembers_ -

“It weren’t fair.”

He buries his head behind his knees, knocking his hat off to the grass. And before he knows what he’s doing, tears have already begun to soak into his jeans.

“It weren’t fair,” he says again, voice wobbling on the second word.

“I know,” Teddy says, and he feels arms wrap around him. “I know.”

“I never got to- I never got to tell him, you know that?” he says, lifting his head up and looking at the marble as if it could understand him.

“He knew.”

“He- he kept telling me stuff, I don’t even remember- and I just kept sayin’ ‘I’, Teddy. I barely said his name, I just-”

Jed laughs- a horrible snot filled burst that quickly dissolves into a sob. Chest and lungs fluttering, he struggles to keep from actually crying in front of-

Teddy. In front of Teddy.

As soon as he manages to get his breathing back under control, Teddy eases off. They sit side by side.

“Why are you here?” he asks.

“Why are you?” Teddy counters.

“You know why I’m here- Teddy, just answer me.”

Teddy sighs. “I just… wanted to see if you were okay.”

Jed laughs again, moving the lump in his throat back up an inch or two. “Okay. Yeah. I’m jus’ great.”

“You know what I mean.” Teddy crosses his legs. “I wanted to make sure you didn’t do anything-”

“Do anything dumb.” Jed finishes for him. “No. Octy wouldnt’a wanted that.”

They stay at the grave for the rest of the night. Teddy, relieved that Jedediah isn’t going to do any further damage to himself, doesn’t ask any more questions. And the night crawls on.

When at last the indigo sky breaks free of its purple shell and the yolk of a sun melts out onto the trees and the grass, Teddy stands. Jedediah looks up to see his friend holding out a hand.

“Smile, my boy,” Teddy says, looking first at the grave and then at Jedediah- and Jedediah knows now that he has to move on. That he can’t live like this forever. That he’s going to grow older and older, he’s going to move away and go to college and learn something new and the memory of Octavius is going to fade until at last he’ll forget the sound of his voice, the shape of his face, the feel of his skin. He won’t forget-  _he’ll never forget-_ but he can’t live like this.

“It’s sunrise.”

Jedediah takes his hand, stands. He walks from the grave, through the gate, and out into the rest of the world.

He doesn’t look back.

 

 

  _Fin._

**Author's Note:**

> *falls down*  
> hoooo boy- it's finally time to put this monster to rest T.T
> 
>  _Aestas:_ Summer
> 
> Special thanks to [tinyotphell](http://www.tinyotphell.tumblr.com) for helping come up with the HSAU world (in [this post](http://tinyotphell.tumblr.com/post/114060292498/angst).) Thanks to everyone who sent in asks to the blog, and thanks to everyone who stuck through to the end :D As always, if you spot any typos, be sure to let me know and I'll fix them as soon as possible!
> 
> In case you didn't check out the fanart linked in the middle, [ here it is!](http://fuzzytrashgiver.tumblr.com/post/114817963475) Thanks to the lovely [ Fuzzytrashgiver](http://www.fuzzytrashgiver.tumblr.com) for the art!!
> 
> (And just in case, feel free to draw fanart of or write fic in this High School AU universe, just make sure to send me a link!)


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